Caelix approved for use in Australia

The medication has a less toxic effect on the heart than some other chemotherapy drugs, said US breast cancer specialist Dr Edgardo Rivera, in Australia to speak with oncologists about the drug he helped develop.

"It has less cardiac toxicity, ... less nausea and vomiting and less hair loss," Dr Rivera said.

"Patients who are getting treatment for breast cancer are mostly women so it helps their self esteem.

"At the same time, patients that are older or have cardiac risk factors will benefit from the lowered cardiac toxicity."

Approved for use in Australia this month, pegylated liposomal doxorubicin hydrochloride - marketed as Caelix - is actually a reformulation of an existing cancer drug.

"This is a drug that has been used in the past but has been reformulated to have fewer side effects," Dr Rivera said.

"In terms of survival there was no difference but the difference was in terms of toxicity."

In an international trial partly conducted in Australia and published in this month's Annals of Oncology, 31 per cent of patients responded positively when they took the drug as a single treatment.

The response rate rose to 71 per cent when it was administered in conjunction with other drugs.

"These results ... in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer represent an important advance in chemotherapy," said Dr Mary O'Brien, lead author of the study.

Patients considered unfit to receive some classes of drugs or those who had already had extensive treatment without success could benefit from the new treatment, Dr O'Brien added.

The medication has also been approved for the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer and Kaposi's sarcoma, an AIDS-related cancer.

"It's a very exciting drug and I think eventually we'll see work being done with multiple myeloma and leukaemias," Dr Rivera said.

"There are studies into using it to treat those conditions being conducted at the moment."