Current limits of knowledge in adjuvant and neoadjuvant endocrine therapy of breast cancer: the need for more clinical research

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is long established as part of the multi-modality management of locally advanced breast cancer or inflammatory breast cancer, leading to significantly improved outcome. Numerous recent studies have compared the use of anthracycline-based NAC with adjuvant chemotherapy in earlier-stage disease, and have shown equivalent disease-free and overall survival rates with increased breast conservation rates. These studies have also shown that a pathological complete response after NAC is associated with improved long-term outcome. More recently, the taxanes have been introduced into clinical trials of NAC with increased overall and pCR rates. However, there is no evidence that the addition of taxanes to neoadjuvant anthracycline-based chemotherapy significantly improves long-term disease free survival or overall survival. This paper reviews these trials, as well as trials of dose-dense and trastuzumab-containing NAC regimens. The review discusses the potential for NAC to replace prolonged adjuvant trials in the assessment of new therapeutic agents (using pathological complete response as a surrogate for long-term outcome), to be used as an in vivo chemosensitivity assay to guide further treatment, and to identify molecular markers that correlate with tumour sensitivity or resistance to chemotherapeutic agents so that the treatment of patients can be individualised.

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Neoadjuvant systemic therapy for breast cancer: an overview and review of recent clinical trials

Hanrahan

Hennessy

Valero

2005

Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy

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Neoadjuvant Therapy of Breast Cancer

Hennessy

Hanrahan

Valero

2006

American Journal of Cancer

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Objective: To evaluate the frequency of neoadjuvant therapy (NT) in women with stage I-III breast cancer in Italy and whether it is influenced by biological characteristics, screening history, and geographic area. Methods: Data from the High Resolution Study conducted in 7 Italian cancer registries were used; they are a representative sample of incident cancers in the study period (2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013). Included were 3546 women aged <85 years (groups <50, 50-69, 70-64, and 75+) with stage I-III breast cancer at diagnosis who underwent surgery. Women were classified as receiving NT if they received chemotherapy, target therapy, and/or hormone therapy before the first surgical treatment. Logistic models were built to test the association with biological and contextual variables. Results: Only 8.2% of women (290 cases) underwent NT; the treatment decreases with increasing age (14.5% in age <50 and 2.2% in age 75+), is more frequent in women with negative receptors (14.8%), HER2-positive (15.7%), and triplenegative (15.6%). The multivariable analysis showed the probability of receiving NT is higher in stage III (odds ratio [OR] 3.83; 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.83-5.18), luminal B (OR 1.87; 95% CI 1.27-2.76), triple-negatives (OR 1.88; 95% CI 1.15-3.08), and in symptomatic cancers (OR 1.98;. Use of NT varied among geographic areas: Reggio Emilia had the highest rates (OR 2.29; 95% CI 1.37-3.82) while Palermo had the lowest (OR 0.41; 95% CI 0.24-0.68). Conclusions: The use of NT in Italy is limited and variable. There are no signs of greater use in hospitals with more advanced care.

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Current limits of knowledge in adjuvant and neoadjuvant endocrine therapy of breast cancer: the need for more clinical research

Cited by 2 publications

References 139 publications

Neoadjuvant systemic therapy for breast cancer: an overview and review of recent clinical trials

Neoadjuvant systemic therapy for breast cancer: an overview and review of recent clinical trials

Neoadjuvant Therapy of Breast Cancer

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