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Annals of Oncology 14:1460-1462, 2003
© 2003 European Society for Medical Oncology

Editorial

Primary chemotherapy of breast cancer followed by perioperative chemotherapy: feasible, but are there clinical benefits?

H. Joensuu

Department of Oncology, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland (E-mail: heikki.joensuu@hus.fi)

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

Systemic chemotherapy administered within a few days following surgery is often referred to as ‘perioperative’ chemotherapy [1]. While primary (preoperative) systemic chemotherapy and adjuvant postoperative chemotherapy are standard treatments for early breast cancer, perioperative chemotherapy is not. Relatively few randomised trials have evaluated either single agents or combination chemotherapy given during the perioperative period. A meta-analysis, based on five clinical trials and 6093 randomised patients, found perioperative polychemotherapy reduced the hazard ratio for disease-free survival by 18% (95% confidence interval 0.72–0.92), when the control groups received no systemic therapy. However, no reduction (0%) in the hazard ratio was observed when perioperative chemotherapy was added to postoperative systemic therapy. Of note, perioperative chemotherapy did not improve overall survival in this analysis [1]. Although perioperative chemotherapy has generally been well tolerated with the regimens used, there have been concerns of more frequent . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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