[Chinese expert consensus on the clinical diagnosis and treatment of advanced breast carcinoma(2018)]

Breast cancer is the most common malignant tumor among women in the world. In 2015, there were about 272 000 new diagnosed cases and over 70 000 deaths of breast cancer in China. In new cases of breast cancer each year, about 3 to 10 percent have distant metastases at the time of diagnosis. Among the early-stage patients, 30%-40% will develop into advanced breast cancer. The 5-year survival rate of patients with the advanced breast cancer is only 20%, and the overall median survival is 2-3 years. Although advanced breast cancer is still difficult to cure at present, we can relieve the clinical symptoms, improve the quality of life and further prolong the survival time through development of new drugs and the optimization model of treatment. Patients with advanced breast cancer have their own particularity in the choice of treatment options. Moreover, there is no standard recommendation for the treatment of refractory breast cancer after multiline therapy. In order to offer reference for clinicians, the Chinese expert group has analyzed, summarized and discussed the related research data of diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of inoperable locally advanced breast cancer and recurrent or metastatic breast cancer, and developed the Chinese expert consensus on the clinical diagnosis and treatment of advanced breast carcinoma (2018).