Clinical trials in locally advanced breast cancer

Survival after treatment of locally advanced breast cancer is poor and resembles that for untreated breast cancer. Although retrospective comparisons have suggested that the addition of systemic treatment might be beneficial, a literature survey of the controlled clinical trials failed to show consistent survival benefits of any treatment modality. The local control, or time to local progression, on the other hand seems to be improved by increasing the dose of radiotherapy, or by the addition of endocrine or cytostatic treatment. Further studies should be undertaken to find better means to subdivide patients in different treatment groups. Since the present treatment modalities are unlikely to improve survival more than marginally, clinical studies are necessary to search for the best palliative treatment, until experimental work provides us with better treatment tools.