Clinical workups take into account a combination of factors, such as the size of the patient’s mass, clinical staging, and propensity for breast conservation.
Treatment principles are different depending on the stage of breast cancer:Stage I surgery is the main treatment, and the current trend is breast-conserving surgery plus radiation therapy. Stage II is treated surgically first, followed by adjuvant chemotherapy after surgery according to pathology and clinical situation. For patients with large masses and breast-conserving tendency, neoadjuvant chemotherapy, which is what we call preoperative chemotherapy, can be given priority. Selective radiotherapy is available for some cases with large masses and a high number of lymph node metastases. Stage III neoadjuvant chemotherapy is followed by surgical treatment, and then radiotherapy and chemotherapy after surgery according to clinical and pathological conditions.
Patients in the above stages who are hormone receptor positive should be given endocrine therapy at the end of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Stage IV is a combination of endotherapy-based treatment.