Metronomic oral chemotherapy with old agents in patients with heavily treated metastatic breast cancer.

BACKGROUND: We aimed to assess the efficacy of a metronomic regimen with cyclophosphamide and etoposide in heavily treated patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 77 patients with MBC used continuous oral cyclophosphamide 50 mg/day and oral etoposide given as 2 × 50 mg/day for 2 days per week, were analyzed retrospectively from Akdeniz University and Selcuk University. The patients with MBC are predominantly refractory to antracyclines, taxanes, and antimetabolites. RESULTS: The patients were treated and followed between May 2005 and June 2014. The median progression-free and overall survival (PFS and OS) were 7.03 (5.06-8.99) and 32.5 (22.5-42.4) months, respectively. No prognostic factor was found for OS. CONCLUSIONS: Metronomic treatment regimen with cyclophosphamide and etoposide is a novel and effective strategy in heavily pretreated MBC patients. This regimen can be used in early or late steps as independently from prognostic factors. Moreover, it has very low toxicity and is cheap. Impressive survival data and low cost may make this regimen a highly preferable option.