ObjectiveTo evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of TEC and CEF regimen in preoperative chemotherapy for patients with breast cancer. MethodsA total of one hundred breast cancer patients undergoing preoperative chemotherapy were divided into TEC group (n=50) and CEF group (n=50) by the pairgroup method and received surgical therapy after three courses of chemotherapy. The efficacy and toxicity of preoperative chemotherapy of patients in two groups were analyzed. ResultsFour patients with stage ⅢB breast cancer quit from CEF group after two courses of treatment because of the worse satisfaction. Clinical complete remission (cCR) was 7 cases, clinic partial remission (cPR) was 34 cases, stable disease (SD) was 9 cases, therefore, the remission rate (RR) was 82.0% (41/50), and reduction rate of tumor was 64.0% (32/50) in TEC group. cCR was 2 cases, cPR was 32 cases, SD was 12 cases, thus the RR was 680% (34/50), and reduction rate of tumor was 40.0% (20/50) in CEF group. The clinical efficacy and reduction rate of tumor of patients in TEC group were significantly superior than those in CEF group (Plt;0.05). The negative conversion ratio of lymph nodes were 54.1% (20/37) and 57.1% (20/35) in TEC group and CEF group, which was not statistically different (Plt;0.05). The occurrence of hair loss and leukopenia of patients in TEC group were significantly higher than those in CEF group (Plt;0.05), while the differences in thrombocytopenia, low concentration of hemoglobin, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cardiac toxicity, and neurotoxicity were not significant (Pgt;0.05). ConclusionTEC regimen is better than CEF regimen in the efficacy and safety of neo-adjuant therapy for patients with breast cancer, and well tolerated.
The characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practice include treatment based on syndrome differentiation and holism, which determines it is difficult to reflect the individualized therapeutic evaluation and overall regulation of TCM through traditional randomized controlled trials, which is based on quantitative evaluation. The implementation of N-of-1 trials will provide opportunities for quantitative evaluation of individualized therapeutic evaluation of TCM. Using mixed methods research, such as exploratory sequence design, interpretive sequence design or convergent design can provide abundant data to individualized therapeutic evaluation of TCM in different aspects, which may reflect holism and humanities characteristics of TCM in individual level.