Abstract

The preoperative, or, as it is often called, neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAPCT) of operable breast cancer (the breast cancer) with affected regional lymph nodes has in its time replaced preoperative radiotherapy, as it has a number of significant advantages over the latter. The most important advantage of NAPCT is its systemic action, which allows to “catching up” with probable distant micro-metastases or circulating tumor cells, while pre-operative radiotherapy has a local effect, and on the systemic level the tumor continues to develop. Despite of the fact that with operative breast cancer the time of NAPCT (before or after the operation) does not affect to the long-term results of treatment, the latter becomes applicable even for operable breast cancer without affected regional lymph nodes.According to the literature, NAPCT with primary-operative breast cancer allows: 1) make organ saving operations; 2) improve the prognosis in cases of complete morphological regression in patients with triple negative and Her2 / neu positive (non-luminal) subtypes; 3) evaluate the effect of chemotherapy and, in the absence of effect, stop it on time [1].