What is the role of therapy before surgery in breast cancer?
Traditionally, early breast cancer has been treated by surgery followed by drug therapy and radiation therapy as indicated. But not all women with a newly diagnosed breast cancer are recommended to have immediate surgery because of the extent of the breast cancer, and these women often receive drug therapy first to make surgery easier. There is also much interest in whether giving drug therapy first would allow us to assess the effects of the drug on the tumor in the woman to tailor therapy, and research addressing this question is in progress. Also, breast cancer researchers are using this “preoperative model” to test newer drugs to see if they are active in order to decide how to prioritize the many drugs under development for testing in breast cancer. Q: What are some additional issues in breast cancer that require more attention or research? Enormous progress has been made in all aspects of breast cancer, from risk assessment to prevention to screening to surgery to radiation thera
