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Planning Adjuvant Treatment

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Breast Cancer Essentials

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Abstract

The treatment of early breast cancer has evolved over the previous years. Currently breast cancer is considered a systemic disease. Regarding the adjuvant treatment, one has to balance between the risk of recurrence and the potential toxicities for a given patient.

The most robust tool to estimate the probabilities of relapse has been the TNM staging system. Despite the evolving role of tumor biology, tumor stage as defined by size and lymph nodes involvement has retained its prognostic value.

Over the years, the knowledge of the biology of the disease has changed the way we approach the patients. Molecular signatures become useful tools and help physicians to take the right decision regarding the appropriate treatment. However, despite the numbers of involved genes, there is an uncertainty in the medical community regarding the optimal use.

Another important issue is the optimal time interval to give chemotherapy. The problem for the patients with early breast cancer in our days is that they are assigned to different prognostic groups with different prognosis and different abilities to afford the treatment toxicities.

The decision to plan adjuvant treatment for patients with early breast cancer is one of the most significant in medical oncology. It is mandatory such a decision to be established on able knowledge of the disease and clinical experience, but nevertheless it is absolutely necessary the adherence to updated guidelines of high quality.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Oncology, Metropolitan Hospital, Piraeus, Greece

    Vasileios Barmpounis

  2. Department of Medical Oncology, St. Loukas Hospital, Salonika, Greece

    George Kesisis

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  1. Vasileios Barmpounis
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. European Academia of Senology, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Mahdi Rezai

  2. Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey

    Mehmet Ali Kocdor

  3. University of Kocaeli, Ä°zmit/Kocaeli, Turkey

    Nuh Zafer Canturk

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Barmpounis, V., Kesisis, G. (2021). Planning Adjuvant Treatment. In: Rezai, M., Kocdor, M.A., Canturk, N.Z. (eds) Breast Cancer Essentials. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73147-2_50

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73147-2_50

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