Chemotherapy is the use of medicinal substances - or drugs, to treat against cancer by killing tumours. This treatment is systemic, thus it treats the whole body. Differentiations of treatment to sick and healthy areas occur due to the nature of the drugs used. There are many different combinations of drugs used for chemotherapy and the kind used to cure each kind of breast cancer is determined due to the character of the tumour, lymph node status, and the age and health of the patient. Here is a short review of the treatments available and the differences between them.

There are two main treatment groups: FU-5 and Taxotere/ Docetaxel, and there are treatments that combine the two. The following comparison shows recent studies conducted to discover each method's advantages.

FU-5
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Cyclophosphamide Methotrexate Fluorouracil (CMF) - is one of the more toxic combinations of chemotherapy used. Some times more medicine needs to be administrated when the tumours resist one of the original drugs. Better results can be reached when substances like trastuzumab or docetaxel are added.
Cyclophosphamide is the generic name for Cytoxan or Neosar. This is a prodrug - this means it is converted in the liver to compounds that have chemotherapeutic values. It id also used for autoimmune problem treatments.

FAC: 5-fluorouracil, doxorubicin. , cyclophosphamide - is another combination of 5-FU / Cyclophsphamide group but it also includes Doxorubicin. Also called adriamycin or hydroxyldaunorubicin  - it is a DNA interacting drug.

AC is the variant of this treatment and it contains doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide only.
Sometimes after AC another drug called Paclitaxel may be administrated. This is an extract of the Pacific yew tree, which is one of the slowest growing trees in the world. This drug slows down cell division even more.

Another combination is: FEC: 5-fluorouracil, epirubucin and cyclophosphamide for 6 cycles.

Taxotere
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Docetaxel is an anti neoplastic drug that is especially effective for treatment of locally advanced tumours. It is usually administered in one hour secessions every three weeks and in up to ten cycle treatment.  It is used in the following combinations.
TAC: docetaxel , doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide
TC: Taxotere (docetaxel) and cyclophosphamide

A combined treatment is: FEC for three cycles followed by docetaxel for three cycles

When one is looking to understand the treatments and their results there are a few things to be considered. First one must compare the relative and absolute risk statistics. Also one must understand the research results and how they were achieved and their relevance to ones own case and also one must consider the side effects involved in each treatment and the risks they have, absolute and relative of course.

Research has compared different kinds of treatment and found that some are more effective than others for different characteristic of illness. A research published in the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, December 2002, Abstract #17 Pritchard KI, et al. compares between treatments from the Cytoxan and 5-FU group, claims that CEF Chemotherapy is better than CMF for Pre-menopausal Women with Node-Positive Disease. The study began in 1989 and compared women with breast and axillary lymph cancer. The two groups of women were treated with two different chemical regimens known as CEF (Cytoxan, epirubicin, 5-FU) to CMF (Cytoxan, methotrexate, 5-FU). The research was first published after five years of follow-up and now new results after 10 years only reconfirm the first publications.
The main conclusion is that CEF therapy is better at lowering the risk of recurrence and lowering the risk of death from the disease than CMF is. Survival rates after ten years are: 62% for CEF and 58% for CMF. From the serious side effects found with this kind of treatment, 1.1% of CEF patients and 0.3% of CMF patients were diagnosed with permanent congestive heart failure. If you are before your menopause and your cancer has invaded the nodes you should consider that CEF treatment may be more effective but it also has a slightly higher risk to the heart.
Another study compared the Taxotere group and the Cytoxan and 5-FU group treatments and has confirmed that Taxotere (chemical name docetaxel) is beneficial for women with early stage node positive cancer. The study published at the San Antonio Caner symposium has followed 1500 women who were operated no more than 60 days before treatment and followed them for five years. 745 women were treated with TAC and 746 with FAC. The groups received 6 rounds of therapy with three weeks between treatments. Women who had breast conserving surgery also received radiation treatments. Women who had Hormonal receptor positive cancer also received tamoxifen, after chemotherapy. After five years the research team compared overall survival rates and survival rates without reoccurrence in both groups. Their results were that 4% fewer of the women in the group that received TAC had the cancer come back, compared to the women who received FAC. The absolute risk of recurrence for the women who received TAC compared to those who received FAC was 7%.In terms of side effects, neutropenia (not enough white blood cells that help you fight infection) was more common with TAC than with FAC. Other side effects were similar and manageable for both groups. The researchers concluded that for women with early-stage, node-positive disease, there is an advantage to Taxotere over 5-FU in combination with Adriamycin and cyclophosphamide to lower the risk of cancer coming back.

It is important to remember that there are many combination of chemotherapy available, so if you or a patient you knew is not feeling well with their treatment and they think it is not the best option for them then consult a doctor about changing it. Sometimes a hunch is worth a thousand scientific researches when it comes to the survival of cancer. Belief in the treatment is just as important as the treatment itself and the opinion of the patient should be respected.