Neo-adjuvant Chemotherapy in Locally Advanced Breast Cancer: A Retrospective Analysis from Tertiary Care Centre.

INTRODUCTION: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in India. The incidence of LABC is 30%-40% in developing countries as compared to developed countries, lack of awareness and screening programmes in developing countries are supposed to be main contributor of this increase incidence. The use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in locally advanced breast cancer has shown benefits in down staging of tumors, and increases the rate of breast conserving surgeries.

AIM: The aim was to compare response rate (clinical and pathological), the disease free survival, and overall survival in two chemotherapy regime.

METHODS: Medical records of 415 patients diagnosed with invasive breast cancer were analysed. One hundred and seventy five patients received neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. They were divided in two groups, sequential therapy with 4 cycles of anthracycline followed by 4 cycles of docetaxal were in group 1 as compared to those who received anthracycline based chemotherapy were allocated in group 2.

RESULTS: Sequential NACT with AC-D showed better disease free survival and overall survival in comparison to anthracycline based NACT.

CONCLUSION: Locally advanced breast cancers have shown good response with taxane based sequential chemotherapy.