Advanced ovarian carcinoma: Does a high-dose short-duration schedule of paclitaxel trump prolonged low-dose therapy? - Cancer Network

Note: This is a good discussion debating pros/cons (requires registration to view/free) - some excerpts from article:

Point / Counterpoint


"In addition, the population in the Japanese study was considerably less diverse than the typical U.S. or European study. Final conclusions must await a confirmatory U.S. trial that has been awaiting NCI clearance for activation for almost one year, GOG 262."..."If you have a lower-dose therapy, given at certain intervals, you get so many log cells killed and tumor recovery between treatments," Dr. Long said. "If you give a higher dose of a drug, or a regimen that kills more cancer, you can accomplish more cell kill in a given period of time. And if you can move up the therapy so that you reduce the recovery, you can accomplish more total cell kill. So dose density certainly seems reasonable. The question is: Is it feasible?".....But do these benefits always manifest in a real-world setting? Not necessarily. Dr. Thigpen ......" and finally;

VANTAGE POINT - Dr Alberts ""You can't base all of your decisions on one study," Dr. Alberts cautioned. "But when you get a lead like this, you have to follow it. When you see a survival advantage on a different schedule, you have to take note of that." Dr. Alberts also questioned the application of data compiled in breast cancer trials to ovarian cancer. "Using breast cancer literature, argument against what has been shown in ovarian cancer literature doesn't wash with me," he said. "If you are looking at ovarian cancer, you need to debate the ovarian cancer literature."