A Study of Weekly Taxotere and Xeloda in Metastatic Breast Cancer

Combination chemotherapy has advantages over monochemotherapy due to the higher response rates that can often be obtained; by using agents with non-overlapping toxicity profiles, these responses can be achieved with less toxicity than maximally tolerated doses of single agents. One significant advantage of capecitabine/weekly docetaxel combination chemotherapy is that both agents appear to have a toxicity profile appropriate for palliative therapy of advanced breast cancer. This trial will utilize the usual schedule of capecitabine used in the USA, which is two times per day oral dosing for 14 days but at a reduced dose in hopes of decreasing toxicities. Docetaxel will be given weekly at a dose of 35 mg/m2 X 2 with a one-week rest to coincide with the 14-day schedule of capecitabine. The primary objective is to evaluate the overall response rate (complete and partial responses) according to the RECIST criteria of the combination of capecitabine and docetaxel with the selected schedule in patients with advanced and/or metastatic breast cancer. The secondary objectives are to evaluate tolerability, time to tumor progression, and time to treatment failure of the combination of capecitabine and docetaxel.