National consensus in China on diagnosis and treatment of patients with advanced breast cancer.

The recently available guidelines on the management of advanced breast cancer (ABC) organized by Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, Committee of Breast Cancer Society (CACA-CBCS) do not elucidate ABC in details. To instruct clinicians in treatment of ABC, a Chinese expert consensus meeting on diagnosis and treatment of ABC was held in June 2014 and a consensus is developed. The following consensus provides the level of evidence and supporting documents for each recommendation, and introduces research topics to be urgently addressed. Notably, the consensus on diagnosis and treatment of ABC in China is developed to be applied nationwide. In different areas, multidisciplinary treatment (MDT) tailored to the each patient and the disease itself should be applied based on the basic principles of modern oncology.