Do Bone Marrow Transplants for Breast Cancer Work Better Than Standard Treatments?
Thousands of breast cancer patients are undergoing high-dose chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation without definitive evidence that it works better than standard therapies, according to a new report from the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO). Scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) said the report underscores the urgent need to complete studies of the controversial and difficult treatment. “The GAO report has made it very clear how much we need real answers about bone marrow transplants for breast cancer,” said the NCI’s Jeffrey Abrams, M.D. “We must be able to tell women whether they need this treatment or whether they have just as good, or even a better, chance of survival with another form of chemotherapy.” Definitive answers about the treatment — known as high-dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow transplants, or HDC-ABMT — should come from three studies now under way and a fourth that has just been launched. All four are sponsored by the NCI, which is
