Mitoxantrone--a useful palliative therapy in advanced breast cancer

We have treated 76 patients with advanced breast cancer with single-agent mitoxantrone: all had previously received hormone therapy and 30 patients had also received prior chemotherapy. The overall response rate at 6 months was 15%, with a further 22% having static disease. Responding and static patients had similar survival curves and were grouped together as patients with "stable disease." Patients with stable disease had a significantly longer survival than patients with progressive disease (p less than 0.001); the median difference in survival was 9 months.