Abstract
Adjuvant therapy can be defined as any treatment given after a first treatment (usually local, e.g. surgery, radiotherapy) for a primary tumour, when the first treatment was aimed at completely eradicating all visible tumour. Patients usually have no evidence of distant metastases. The basis for adjuvant therapy is the hypothesis that some patients have micrometastases that are not detected at the time of diagnosis of the primary tumour. Adjuvant therapy is given to target occult micrometastases, or to improve local tumour control. It can take the form of chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, immunotherapy or radiotherapy. Most commonly, chemotherapy is added to surgery, which is the first-choice treatment in most cancers. Over the last 10 years, adjuvant treatment of patients with disease confined to an organ (or the surrounding lymph nodes) has become possible, with benefits in common cancers (breast, colorectal) and in less common cancers such as osteosarcoma.
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