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Breast-conserving treatment after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in large breast cancer

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Abstract

Several recent trials have demonstrated that neoadjuvant chemotherapy can allow more patients to successfully undergo breast-conserving treatment (BCT), and does not confer a survival disadvantage compared with standard adjuvant chemotherapy. In addition, the pathological response of primary breast tumors to neoadjuvant chemotherapy appears to be a surrogate marker for patient outcome.

In our series, during the period from May 1995 to December 2000, 86 patients with tumors between 3.1 and 6.0 cm in diameter received epirubicin-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy. There were 55 (64.0%) responders and ultimately 64 patients (74.4%) were treated with BCT. The margin positive rate was 14.1% (9/64), similar to the rate after BCT for early-stage breast cancers, the largest diameter of which was smaller than 3 cm. At a median follow-up of 30 months, only 3 patients in the BCT group have developed local recurrence; the local recurrence rate appears to be comparable to that after BCT for early stage breast cancers. Long term follow-up is required, however, to establish whether this procedure is a safe alternative to mastectomy for patients with large breast cancers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Surgery, Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases, Japan

    Hideo Inaji, Yoshifumi Komoike, Kazuyoshi Motomura & Hiroki Koyama

  2. Departments of Pathology, Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases, Japan

    Tsutomu Kasugai

  3. Departments of Diagnostic Radiology, Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases, Japan

    Yuka Sawai

  4. Departments of Radiation Oncology, Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases, Japan

    Masahiko Koizumi & Takayuki Nose

Authors
  1. Hideo Inaji
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  2. Yoshifumi Komoike
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  3. Kazuyoshi Motomura
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  4. Tsutomu Kasugai
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  5. Yuka Sawai
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  6. Masahiko Koizumi
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  7. Takayuki Nose
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  8. Hiroki Koyama
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Additional information

Reprint requests to Hideo Inaji, Department of Surgery, Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases, 1-3-3 Nakamichi, Higashinari-ku, Osaka 537-8511, Japan.

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Inaji, H., Komoike, Y., Motomura, K. et al. Breast-conserving treatment after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in large breast cancer. Breast Cancer 9, 20–25 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02967542

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02967542

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