[Feasibility of breast conservation surgery after neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer]

To investigate the efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NCT) and the feasibility of conservative breast surgery after reducing the size of a primary tumor by NCT in patients with operable breast cancer.

Thirty patients with stage IIB and IIIA breast cancer underwent NCT including epirubicin 60 mg/m(2) by intravenous injection on day 1 and paclitaxel 150 mg/m(2) by 3-hour continuous infusion on day 2 with 21 days as a cycle from July 2001 to April 2003. All patients received 3 - 4 cycles of NCT. Breast conservation treatment or modified mastectomy was performed after the tumor was reduced to less than 3 cm in diameter. The nonresponders received modified mastectomy.

The overall response rate (ORR) was 93% (28/30) for the primary tumors of breast, Fifteen patients (50%) obtained clinical complete response (cCR), including 7 cases (23%) with pathologic complete response (pCR). Thirteen cases (43%) achieved clinical partial response (cPR), and 2 (7%) no change (NC). No case showed progression of disease. Twenty-six (87%) cases were downstaged according to the TNM system classification. The median initial tumor size was 4 cm (3 - 10 cm) before NCT and was reduced to 0.8 cm (0 - 6 cm) after NCT. All 30 patients received operation. Eighteen (60%) of them were candidates for breast conserving therapy, and actually only 11 (37%) selected such surgery.

An effective treatment for operable breast cancer, NCT with epirubicin plus paclitaxel results in significant downstaging or eliminating of primary tumors in breast cancer, thus expanding the indication of breast conservation therapy.