NEW YORK, March 11 (UPI) -- Breast cancer patients can be treated safely with a "dose-dense" -- standard dose given more frequently -- regimen of chemotherapy, a U.S. study found.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, suggested the antibody trastuzumab -- Herceptin -- could be administered along with anthracyclines to treat early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer in a dose-dense regimen safely and effectively.

The researchers paired a dose-dense regimen of doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide followed by paclitaxel -- Taxol -- given every two weeks instead of three -- with trastuzumab -- a drug used to treat breast cancer in women whose tumors contain the protein receptor called HER2.

Study leader Dr. Chau Dang of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York found only 1.4 percent -- one patient -- of the 70 early-stage breast cancer patients treated with this regimen experienced congestive heart failure after 28 months of follow-up. This rate of cardiac toxicity is lower than the 4 percent threshold generally considered acceptable, and still lower than what was found in larger, previously published trials evaluating conventionally scheduled treatment with the use of trastuzumab.