Adjuvant and neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimens in breast cancer: summary from the BSMO breast cancer task force meeting

meeting on 21-02-2014. Adjuvant chemotherapy Introduction: evolution in adjuvant chemotherapy regimens Adjuvant chemotherapy improves outcome for women with high-risk breast tumours. The first issue is how to select women for adjuvant (or neoadjuvant) chemotherapy. This topic is beyond the scope of the present manuscript, but several guidelines are available.1 Breast cancer biological subtype, besides tumour extent, has become an important factor in the decision process. Chemotherapy regimens were initially developed for all breast cancer subtypes, but regimens are becoming more and more subtype dependent. Hundreds of randomised studies have been performed in the past on various chemotherapy regimens. It is very difficult to provide an overview of all studies that have ever been performed; we have not been able to find any review that has attempted to do this in the last decade. We refer to the most recent Oxford overview for details on individual trials from the last two decades.2 For this manuscript, we decided to select landmark studies that can have a major impact on neo/adjuvant therapy regimen choice.