Well, yes, that is an old link.
Nevertheless, take a look at the NCI clinical trial search tool
cancernet.nci.nih.gov
which turns up 9 protocols in high dose chemo as the search criteria, and an additional 36 using stem cell transplantation of 204 total trials for breast cancer.
Looking at total trials using "stem cells" as the "drug" yields 241, the bulk of them being in leukemia and lymphoma since it pulls up the same 36 in BC. That's nearly 200 more or 4:1 in other areas beside HDC. This ratio has been expanding year by year.
You should also not overlook Stem Cell (May, San Diego) sponsored by UCSD as a key cell transplant meeting that explores more "cutting edge" therapies and trends. ASH and ASCO are fairly broad and tend to reflect a more conservative POV than Stem Cell. Stem Cell in the last three years has seen debate go from (in my opinion, at least) "are BC tumor cells going back into the patient to cause relapse and can this be prevented?" to "it doesn't matter, there are too many residual BC cells still in the patient and you need a good scavenger to get them" if I may take license here to paraphrase. So HDC with a "clean" stem cell transplant is of declining interest.
Fewer and fewer groups in the US, Canada, Europe and Japan are actively pursuing HDC as a primary treatment modality, the one exception being Spain, where HDC is still more highly utilized on relative terms.
Disclaimer: I work in this field and this reflects my bias and opinion, but the data and links are in and of themselves, objective.
RWR |
