Stage IIIB breast cancer describes invasive breast cancer in which a tumor of any size has spread to the breast skin, chest wall, or internal mammary lymph nodes. It also includes inflammatory breast cancer, a very uncommon but very serious, aggressive type of breast cancer.
Patients diagnosed with Stage IIIB breast cancer usually will receive chemotherapy before surgery and then possibly radiation, hormonal therapy, and more chemotherapy after surgery.
Those who receive a complete disappearance of all detectable cancer from receiving the chemotherapy before surgery have a better survival rate than those who have evidence of cancer after the neoadjuvant treatments. Researchers want to try and improve survival for those who have not had a complete response to the treatments before surgery.
Researchers from Italy conducted a trial to evaluate the effects of additional chemotherapy after surgery to see if this will give these patients a better chance at cancer free survival.
The participants were followed for over six years:
- Cancer free survival was 92 percent among patients who had a complete response from neoadjuvant treatment.
- Patients that still had detectable cancer after neoadjuvant treatment had only a 53 percent cancer free survival.
- Those patients that did not have a complete response after neoadjuvant therapy but went on to have more chemotherapy after surgery had 100 percent cancer free survival.
The researchers added that the trial was small but it appears that additional chemotherapy added after surgery could provide a significant survival benefit.
