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Review Article
Special Issues for Breast Cancer

Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer

Anbok Lee, Byung-In Moon
The Ewha Medical Journal 2014;37(2):75-82. Published online: September 30, 2014

Department of Surgery, Ewha Womans University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Byung-In Moon. Department of Surgery, Ewha Womans University School of Medicine, 1071 Anyangcheon-ro, Yangcheon-gu, Seoul 158-710, Korea. Tel: 82-2-2650-5584, FAX: 82-2-2644-7984, mbit@ewha.ac.kr
• Received: July 31, 2014   • Accepted: August 25, 2014

Copyright © 2014. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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  • Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in Korean women and its incidence has increased. Among the various treatment methods for breast cancer, chemotherapy plays an important role. The use chemotherapy to treat breast cancer began at the mid 20th century and first combination chemotherapy was conducted in mid 1970s. This chemotherapy reduced breast cancer mortality up to 25~30%, anthracycline and taxane based chemotherapeutic regimens are widely used. Chemotherapy could be classified to neoadjuavnt, adjuvant and palliative setting according to its aim and role. In this review, various drug therapeutic options and their backgrounds are considered based on neoadjuvant, adjuvant and metastatic systemic therapies.
  • Keywords: Breast neoplasms; Chemotherapy
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Fig. 1
Magnetic resonance imagings of 40-years-old woman, who was diagnosed with breast cancer and received 6 cycles of neoadjuvant AT (doxorubicin+docetaxel) chemotherapy. Pathologic complete response was identified after 6 cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. (A) Before the neoadjuvant chemotherapy, tumor mass occupied over the half of right breast and axillary node is enlarged due to metastasis. (B) After 6 cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, tumor mass and metastatic axillary nodes are completely resolved.
emj-37-75-g001.jpg
Table 1
Regimens for adjuvant chemotherapy [17]

PO, per os; IV, Intravenous.

emj-37-75-i001.jpg
Table 2
Single agent chemotherapy regimens for metastatic breast cancer [17]

IV, Intravenous; PO, per os.

emj-37-75-i002.jpg
Table 3
Combination chemotherapy regimens for metastatic breast cancer [17]

PO, per os; IV, Intravenous.

emj-37-75-i003.jpg

Figure & Data

References

    Citations

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    Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer
    Ewha Med J. 2014;37(2):75-82.   Published online September 30, 2014
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.12771/emj.2014.37.2.75
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    Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer
    Ewha Med J. 2014;37(2):75-82.   Published online September 30, 2014
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.12771/emj.2014.37.2.75
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    Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer
    Image
    Fig. 1 Magnetic resonance imagings of 40-years-old woman, who was diagnosed with breast cancer and received 6 cycles of neoadjuvant AT (doxorubicin+docetaxel) chemotherapy. Pathologic complete response was identified after 6 cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. (A) Before the neoadjuvant chemotherapy, tumor mass occupied over the half of right breast and axillary node is enlarged due to metastasis. (B) After 6 cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, tumor mass and metastatic axillary nodes are completely resolved.

    Fig. 1

    Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer

    Regimens for adjuvant chemotherapy [17]

    PO, per os; IV, Intravenous.

    Single agent chemotherapy regimens for metastatic breast cancer [17]

    IV, Intravenous; PO, per os.

    Combination chemotherapy regimens for metastatic breast cancer [17]

    PO, per os; IV, Intravenous.
    Table 1 Regimens for adjuvant chemotherapy [17]

    PO, per os; IV, Intravenous.

    Table 2 Single agent chemotherapy regimens for metastatic breast cancer [17]

    IV, Intravenous; PO, per os.

    Table 3 Combination chemotherapy regimens for metastatic breast cancer [17]

    PO, per os; IV, Intravenous.

    Table 1

    Table 2

    Table 3

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