A trial of a chemotherapy drug called nab-paclitaxel alongside gemcitabine or carboplatin for triple negative breast cancer that has spread (tnAcity)

This trial is looking at a drug called nab-paclitaxel with either gemcitabine or carboplatin for triple negative breast cancer. If breast cancer doesn’t have receptors for the hormones progesterone and oestrogen, or for the protein HER2, it is called triple negative breast cancer

Doctors usually treat breast cancer with surgery. You may also have other treatments such as chemotherapy to try to stop the cancer coming back in the breast or spreading to another part of your body.

But sometimes breast cancer does spread somewhere else in the body. This is called secondary or metastatic breast cancer.

Some of the treatments that doctors can use to treat metastatic breast cancer, such as hormone therapy or a drug called Herceptin don’t work for triple negative breast cancer. So if this type of cancer spreads somewhere else in the body, you are most likely to have chemotherapy. The chemotherapy drugs that doctors may use include gemcitabine, carboplatin and paclitaxel (also known as Taxol).

One type of paclitaxel is combined with a protein called albumin to form a drug called nab-paclitaxel (also known as Abraxane). This form of the drug can be given at a higher dose and it may work differently to Taxol.

In this trial, researchers are looking at nab-paclitaxel alongside either gemcitabine or carboplatin. They are comparing these drug combinations with a combination of gemcitabine and carboplatin. The women taking part have not had any other treatment for breast cancer that has spread, so doctors call this first line treatment.

The aims of the trial are to

• See which drug combination works best as first line treatment for triple negative breast cancer that has spread

• Learn more about the side effects