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Some clinicians might find it difficult to remember that high-dose chemotherapy (HDC) was once heralded as the answer to treating patients with high-risk or advanced breast cancer. An entire industry developed around this therapeutic approach, which evolved largely as a result of promising phase II trials. Patients clamored to receive HDC, and lawsuits against insurers multiplied if the treatment was denied. All this activity occurred prior to the completion of phase III randomized trials that addressed the efficacy of HDC. The general mind-set at the time was that HDC worked; thus, accrual to ongoing key randomized trials was slowed.
Now, researchers have assembled a single database from six randomized clinical trials in which HDC plus auto…