High-dose chemotherapy for breast cancer: evolving data.

Despite a recent decline in incidence and mortality, breast cancer currently develops in one of eight North American women who live to 85 years of age, and remains the major cause of death in American women between the ages of 15 and 54.[1,2] Data from historical series and the results of cooperative group adjuvant trials from the 1970s and ’80s indicate that mortality at 10 years in women who have 10 or more involved lymph nodes or a large primary tumor at presentation exceeds 60%. Virtually all patients who initially present with or later develop metastatic breast cancer ultimately die of their disease.[3,4]