A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind phase 2 study of docetaxel compared to docetaxel plus zosuquidar (LY335979) in women with metastatic or locally recurrent breast cancer who have received one prior chemotherapy regimen

Purpose: To determine if concomitant administration of docetaxel plus zosuquidar.3HC1 can prolong progression-free survival in patients with metastatic breast cancer. Methods: A randomized, double-blind, multicenter, placebo-controlled clinical trial comparing docetaxel plus 500 mg zosuquidar.3HCl (DZ) with docetaxel plus placebo (DP). Results: A total of 170 patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to treatment. The median age was 53 years (range, 31-74 years). 81.7% of patients had prior chemotherapy in the adjuvant setting and 18.3% in the neoadjuvant setting. The median progression-free survival time was statistically different between groups [7.2 months (DZ) vs. 8.3 months (DP)]. Once the stratification factor relative to progression following prior chemotherapy was considered, no significant treatment difference existed. Conclusion: The combination of zosuquidar.3HCl plus docetaxel is safe. The analysis of efficacy data is complex, but it can be concluded that there is no difference in progression-free survival, overall survival, or response rate in the study as a whole. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.Articl

Polarized inelastic neutron scattering of the partially ordered Tb2Sn2O7

We present inelastic neutron scattering results on the geometrically frustrated pyrochlore Tb2Sn2O7. At high temperature T gt;50K, this system resembles the cooperative paramagnet Tb2Ti2O7, while at low temperature T 60mK, it displays remarkably different behavior. Powder neutron scattering, susceptibility and specific heat techniques have shown that below 0.87K Tb2Sn2O7 enters a partially ordered state that is characterized by two sublattice ferrimagnetic long range order which coexists with paramagnetic spin components. We show that i the low temperature state produces a large internal field and collective excitations and ii the coexisting paramagnetic state persists down to 0.1K, with spins fluctuation at a rate greater than 0.04 THz, resulting in a diffuse magnetic background to the diffraction patterns. A low lying excitation at 1.2meV partially softens as short range correlations build up while cooling in the paramagnetic stat