[Adjuvant chemotherapy of breast cancer with the CMFV protocol]

Adjuvant CMFV therapy was administered from 1975 to 1984 at the Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of the University of Erlangen in 331 patients from a patient population, who underwent an operation with the intention of curing invasive breast cancer. Six cycles of this therapy were administered to 224 women. Only these patients were considered in the evaluation. 538 patients without axillary lymph node metastases and without adjuvant therapy served as reference population. The significance of adjuvant CMFV therapy in relation to the lymph node and menopausal status was investigated in a retrospective analysis. It was shown, that the five-year actual survivals in the group of premenopausal patients with one to three affected lymph nodes and CMFV therapy (n = 60), did not differ significantly from the group of women with premenopausally negative lymph nodes without adjuvant therapy (n = 198) (87.7% versus 88.2%). On the other hand, in the postmenopausal patients, the five-year actual survivals for the corresponding groups were 65.9% and 83.2%, respectively. The difference was significant. The results indicate, that adjuvant CMFV therapy improves the prognosis in premenopausal women, above all in cases with one to three affected lymph nodes. In the postmenopausal patients, a comparable effect could not be demonstrated in this group of patients.