Chemotherapy for breast cancer
The effective chemotherapeutic drugs for breast cancer are
Anthracyclines: doxorubicin, pilocarpine, epirubicin, liposomal doxorubicin Yan Min, Department of Breast Medicine, Henan Cancer Hospital
Paclitaxel: paclitaxel, docetaxel (docetaxel), liposomal paclitaxel, albumin-bound paclitaxel
Antimetabolites: gemcitabine, capecitabine
Anti-microtubule drugs: vincristine
Other drugs: cyclophosphamide, cisplatin, carboplatin, methotrexate, fluorouracil, etoposide (oral), isabepilone, etc.
These effective drugs provide long-term survival benefits for breast cancer patients.
Chemotherapeutic agents play a large role in all stages of a patient’s disease development: the
Neoadjuvant chemotherapy: i.e., preoperative chemotherapy. Preoperative chemotherapy should be given priority to patients with relatively large primary breast lesions and axillary lymph node metastases. Preoperative chemotherapy should be given preference to regimens with high efficiency. The combination of anthracycline and paclitaxel is currently considered the most effective chemotherapy regimen for breast cancer, and for HER-2 positive patients, preoperative chemotherapy containing trastuzumab further enhances the benefit.
Adjuvant chemotherapy: i.e., postoperative chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer. Because there are no evaluable lesions left in the patient after surgery, adjuvant chemotherapy regimens must have high-level evidence-based medical evidence, and both the regimen and dose should strictly follow the evidence-based medical evidence. Unfortunately, we often see many patients receiving irregular chemotherapy, including physician-created regimens, doses significantly less than the standard regimen, and even some at less than 50% of the standard dose, making adjuvant chemotherapy virtually useless and not functioning as it should.
Chemotherapy still plays a pivotal role when patients have recurrence and metastasis. If a recurrence and metastasis occurs within two years after surgery, the adjuvant chemotherapy regimen is generally no longer considered, but if a recurrence and metastasis occurs more than five years after surgery, the regimen once used is still the treatment choice for patients. In addition, the effective combination of the above-mentioned drugs provides breast cancer patients with many treatment opportunities, and the orderly and reasonable arrangement of various treatments such as chemotherapy, endocrine therapy and targeted therapy has significantly prolonged the survival period with tumor for many patients, some up to 10 years or more. Therefore, there is no scientific basis to believe that it is untreatable after recurrence and metastasis, and some doctors even assert to patients’ families that they will not live more than three months.