Curcumin's effect in advanced and metastatic breast cancer patients treated with first or second-line docetaxel: A...

In this study, we investigated whether the association of curcumin and docetaxel among advanced and metastatic breast cancer patients in first or second-line treatment potentiated the objective response rate.

A multicentre, randomized, open label, phase-II study was conducted and included 42 patients from July 2009 to January 2017. The primary endpoint was the objective response rate of the docetaxel-curcumin combination in comparison with docetaxel alone. The secondary endpoints were the assessment of clinical benefit, overall survival, time-to-progression, progression-free survival, compliance, and safety. An interim analysis was planned to evaluate safety and efficacy.

In this interim analysis conducted on 37 patients (19 in the control group vs. 18 in the experimental group), no difference was observed for the objective response rate (p = 0.25, control 73.7% vs. experimental 55.6%). Concerning clinical benefit, overall survival and time-to-progression, we also failed to show any difference between the two arms. A slight tendency towards longer progression-free survival at 12 months after randomization was observed in the curcumin group (65.5% vs. 41.4%) but this difference did not reach significance (p = 0.14).

In this study, we showed for the first time that adding oral curcumin for advanced and metastatic breast cancer patients treated with first or second-line docetaxel was not efficacious, although safe. Consequently, this study was stopped for reasons of futility. Further studies with a larger number of patients, a different curcumin preparation, a longer treatment period and a pharmacokinetic evaluation of curcumin are needed to explore the real efficacy of this compound.