Maintaining treatment of locally advanced breast cancer

Locally advanced breast cancer.

The multidisciplinary management of patients with locally advanced breast cancer (LABC) has evolved over the last three decades. The introduction of chemotherapy (CT) and endocrine therapy in conjunction with surgery and radiation therapy (XRT) have changed the natural history of this disease. The authors discuss the role of the taxanes, novel endocrine therapy, and high-dose CT programs in the...

Current definition of locally advanced breast cancer.

Management of locally advanced breast cancer.

Multimodality therapy--i.e., surgical excision followed by appropriate systemic therapy and radiotherapy--has an established role in managing patients with locally advanced breast cancer (LABC). Preoperative chemotherapy permits optimal local control with less radical surgical intervention, although its impact on overall survival is still unclear. Definitive data are not yet available to determ...

Management of Locally Advanced Breast Cancer

In 1962, Bloom and colleagues described the natural history of locally advanced breast cancer.[1] (For the purposes of this manuscript, we will define locally advamced breast cancer as tumors that measure more than 5 cm, tumors that extend to the chest wall or skin, and tumors with fixed ipsilateral nodes or ipsilateral internal mammary nodes. These characteristics therefore correspond to opera...

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy for locally advanced breast cancer.

Preoperative systemic therapy is the standard of care in locally advanced breast cancer. In this setting, the intent of preoperative systemic therapy is to expand surgical options and to improve survival. Locally advanced and inflammatory breast cancer have different biological features, but they share the use of preoperative (primary, neoadjuvant) systemic therapy as the initial treatment of c...