Which Patients Need Chemotherapy? From Pathological Risk Factors to Gene Signatures and Evaluation of Endocrine Response.

BACKGROUND: Chemotherapy, used either before or after surgery, has significantly improved survival in early breast cancer. Accurate risk assessment is essential to avoid both overtreatment and undertreatment. This review provides an overview of the evolution of chemotherapy as well as risk factors for tailored systemic therapies in early breast cancer - from pathologic risk factors to gene expression signatures to endocrine response assessment.

SUMMARY: Chemotherapy has improved dramatically in recent decades from its beginnings with conventionally dosed cyclophosphamide plus methotexate plus 5-fluorouracil to dose-dense anthracycline- and taxane-containing regimens. Similarly, risk assessment has evolved starting from traditional pathologic risk factors such as tumor size, axillary nodal status, and grading. In recent decades, gene expression signatures have improved prognostic accuracy with a high level of evidence. In turn, these signatures can be further improved by incorporating the aforementioned pathologic factors. As an important step away from this static assessment, dynamic assessment of proliferation factor Ki-67 after short-term preoperative endocrine treatment has gained interest to improve risk assessment in early hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.

KEY MESSAGE: This review highlights advances in chemotherapy and risk assessment in early breast cancer, from pathologic risk factors for recurrence to gene expression signatures and endocrine response assessment. These developments are leading to better risk stratification and thus better adaptation of therapies.