Cardiovascular Toxicities from Systemic Breast Cancer Therapy

Cardiovascular Toxicities from Systemic Breast Cancer Therapy

Cardiovascular toxicity is unfortunately a potential short- or long-term sequela of breast cancer therapy. Both conventional chemotherapeutic agents such as anthracyclines and newer targeted agents such as trastuzumab can cause varying degrees of cardiac dysfunction. Type I cardiac toxicity is dose-dependent and irreversible, whereas Type II is not dose-dependent and is generally reversible wit...

Neoadjuvant Systemic Therapy in Breast Cancer

[Neoadjuvant systemic therapy in breast cancer].

Neoadjuvant (preoperative) systemic therapy is a good possibility for the treatment of symptomatic breast cancers of the locoregional stage. Chemotherapy or hormone therapy chosen according to the characteristics of the primary tumor, result in the regression of the tumor in the majority of the cases, favoring breast conserving surgery thereafter. The long-term effects of neoadjuvant systemic t...

Primary systemic therapy of breast cancer.

Primary systemic therapy (PST) or neoadjuvant therapy is used in nonmetastatic breast cancer to treat systemic disease earlier, decrease tumor bulk ideally to a complete pathological response (pCR), and reduce the extent of surgery. The multitude of clinical trials using PST in breast cancer patients has not proven the fundamental hypotheses of improved overall survival and disease-free surviva...

Adjuvant systemic therapy for breast cancer.

The first procedure in primary breast cancer is usually the surgical excision of the tumor. However, a medical therapy is necessary in almost all patients to treat the systemic component of the disease. Which medical approach is recommended depends on the biology of the tumor itself. Endocrine-responsive tumors must be treated by an endocrine therapy according to their menopausal status. In HER...