Impact of dosing schedule of doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide (AC) chemotherapy on rates of hospitalization and resource utilization.

78 Background: 4 cycles ofAC chemotherapy are given as a component of several important and widely used chemotherapy regimens in the adjuvant treatment of breast cancer. We queried whether the use of dose-dense (every 2 week) AC chemotherapy is associated with a lower rate of hospitalization and resource utilization in clinical practice. Methods: We identified patients with early stage breast cancer treated with 3-weekly AC chemotherapy in a single institution. Cases were matched to controls by year of diagnosis and age. Rates of hospitalization during AC chemotherapy as well as duration of hospitalization, associated costs and use of pegfilgrastim were compared between the two groups. Fisher's exact test was used to compare categorical variables, and paired t-test was used to compare continuous variables. Results: 26 patients were included in the analysis. The mean age was 56 in both groups. As expected, rates of growth factor support with pegfilgrastim were higher in the dose dense versus 3-weekly group...