Adjuvant therapy of breast cancer

World J Surg. 1994 Jan-Feb;18(1):112-6. doi: 10.1007/BF00348200.

Abstract

About 180,000 American women will be diagnosed with early stage breast cancer during 1993. In many of these patients breast cancer is a systemic disease at diagnosis and thus not curable by local treatment alone. The development of optimal forms of systemic adjuvant therapy has been a major area of research for more than 30 years. The two most widely employed types of adjuvant therapy, cytotoxic chemotherapy and tamoxifen, have been shown to improve relapse-free and overall survival in certain patient subsets. This review highlights recent advances in adjuvant therapy of early stage breast cancer and discusses current treatment guidelines.

MeSH terms

  • Antineoplastic Agents / therapeutic use*
  • Breast Neoplasms / drug therapy*
  • Breast Neoplasms / mortality
  • Breast Neoplasms / pathology
  • Chemotherapy, Adjuvant
  • Consensus Development Conferences, NIH as Topic
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Lymphatic Metastasis
  • Prognosis
  • Survival Rate
  • United States

Substances

  • Antineoplastic Agents