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Background. Poor prognosis of Stage IV breast cancer patients have at best a 10% 3-year survival rate with conventional chemotherapy. Dose-intensive chemotherapy improved survival rates for some of these patients. Methods. All patients were Stage IV estrogen receptor-negative or estrogen receptor-positive hormonal refractory and received conventional chemotherapy (induction phase) to the point of achieving maximal response; if disease was stable or the patients responded, they entered high-dose chemotherapy (intensive phase). Seventy-six percent of the patients received two highdose treatments with cyclophosphamide (4.5-6.0 g/[m.sup.2]), etoposide (750-1500 mg/[m.sup.2]), and cisplatin (120-180 mg/[m.sup.2]). Patients were randomized to receive or not receive autologous marrow. To identify prognostic factors for survival, univariate statistical analysis and multivariate models were applied to patient subsets. Results. Univariate analysis identified a number of factors whose presence indicates improvement in overall survival rates. These include: (1) absence of liver relapse (P = 0.001); (2) absence of soft tissue relapse (P = 0.001); (3) a smaller number of metastatic sites at the time of detecting Stage IV disease (P = 0.026); and (4) disease-free interval greater than 1 year from initial diagnosis to Stage IV disease (P = 0.011). Multivariate models were fitted to the data, and three variables were identified as independent negative predictors for overall survival: (1) liver site (P = 0.001); (2) soft tissue site (P = 0.039); and (3) prior adjuvant chemotherapy (P = 0.028). Conclusions. Shorter survival after high-dose chemotherapy is predicted independently by patients pretreated with adjuvant chemotherapy, by disease distributed to the liver or the soft tissue.