[Treatment of advanced breast cancer: current issues]

Because the great majority of patients with advanced breast cancer have been traditionally placed under the care of surgeons, therapeutic planning is usually done by making operative management the key even at the present time when operable breast cancer is appropriately recognized to represent a systemic disease. For advanced breast cancer to be treated more effectively, systematically planned multimodality treatment must be undertaken. The development of G-CSF and stem cell transplantation to counter hematopoietic toxicity have allowed the safe use of high-dose intensity chemotherapy, which has also been applied in the neoadjuvant setting. Recent experience with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) has shown promise and indeed some good responders have been offered breast conserving surgery. NACT also serves as an in vivo chemosensitivity test, the results of which are to be exploited in chemo-hormonal therapy after locoregional treatment. Although further studies are required to evaluate this treatment more precisely, multicycle dose-intensified chemotherapy can now be safely and liberally incorporated into systematically planned multimodality treatment for advanced breast cancer.