Albumin-bound paclitaxel (ABI007; Abraxane) in the management of basal-like breast carcinoma
We read with great interest the paper by Banerjee et al1 regarding the clinical outcome and response to chemotherapy in basal-like carcinoma of the breast. After extensive discussion of chemotherapeutics used in the
management of basal-like carcinoma, they concluded that new treatment options should be investigated for patients with this subtype of breast cancer. A recent study by Pinilla et al2 showed that caveolin-1 (CAV1) expression is
associated with a basal-like phenotype in sporadic and hereditary breast cancers. They looked at CAV1 expression in 509 sporadic and 47 hereditary BRCA1-/BRCA2-associated carcinomas. A strong association was found between
CAV1 expression and a basal-like phenotype. This phenotype was present in 52% of tumours
that expressed CAV1, compared with only 9% of CAV1-negative carcinomas (p,0.001). Interestingly, Rouzier et al3 showed that the basal-like and HER-2-positive subtypes of breast cancer are more sensitive to paclitaxel- and
doxorubicin-containing preoperative chemotherapy than the luminal and normal-like cancers.
ABI-007 (Abraxane; American BioScience, Santa Monica, California, USA) is a new,
biologically interactive, nanometer-sized albumin-bound paclitaxel particle initially developed to avoid the toxicities associated with polyethylated castor oil. It is the first of a new class of anticancer agents that incorporate