Neoadjuvant endocrine therapy for breast cancer: more questions than answers. Clinical Oncology

摘要

Neoadjuvant endocrine therapy studies for breast cancer are a great opportunity to develop insights into the biologic basis for the efficacy of estrogen receptor-targeting agents. Neoadjuvant endocrine treatment is also appealing from the drug development perspective. Theoretically, a promising new adjuvant endocrine strategy could be first tested as a short-term neoadjuvant treatment against a standard medication. Improvements in tumor response rate, surgical outcomes, and evidence for enhanced efficacy at the cellular level, for example in terms of the effect on proliferation, would provide a sound basis for taking the new approach forward into thejesource-demanding setting of a phase III adjuvant trial.1