Multidisciplinary management of stage III breast cancer: chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy

A prospective study, in which women with clinically stage III breast cancer underwent multidisciplinary therapy by using primary (neoadjuvant) chemotherapy, followed randomly by loco-regionally therapy, either with surgery or radiotherapy; and postoperative systemic chemotherapy, in both groups of treatment, was conduced at the Peruvian Institute of Neoplasic Diseases. This is a randomized, prospective, descriptive, interventionist and analytical clinical study. Clinical response to primary chemotherapy was positive in 80,23% of cases, complete resolution was observed in 18,60% of cases, partial resolution in 61,63% of cases and there was absolutely no response in 19,77% of cases. No residual neoplasm, pathologically proven, was observed in 8,33% of surgical cases. We demonstrated that high-dose primary chemotherapy, using only 2 drugs (cyclophosphamide and 5-fluorouracil), used here because of its lower price, brought similar results compared to anthracycline-containing regimens. Recurrence rates were similar and showed no significative differences in both groups of treatment. Both, the disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS), were similar in both groups of treatment. We also demonstrated that in patients who underwent surgery, the lower the number of axillary lymph node metastases, the higher the overall survival (OS) time. Patients with clinically stage III (A or B) breast cancer, showed similar clinical responses to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, they also showed similar recurrence rates, DFS and OS, when treated with radical mastectomy or radiotherapy. (authors)