Session 6 introduction

John Fr Robertson,Per Eystein Lønning

doi:10.1186/bcr2744

Abstract

Session 6 introduction

Highlights

Session 6 was entitled ‘Who would have thought it!’ and comprised four separate presentations that had in common that the inferred conclusions of their titles would not necessarily have been inferred from perceived wisdom
He provides informed and personal reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of neoadjuvant therapy both as a research tool and in routine clinical practice. This comes from an expert who is ideally placed to make such observations since the research group at the Royal Marsden Hospital has made a number of significant contributions to this field
Professor Smith gets to the heart of the issue very quickly - the weaknesses associated with response rates (clinical complete response or pathological complete response) as endpoints

Summary

Introduction

Session 6 was entitled ‘Who would have thought it!’ and comprised four separate presentations that had in common that the inferred conclusions of their titles would not necessarily have been inferred from perceived wisdom. When neoadjuvant therapy was first introduced many researchers and clinicians hoped it would provide better outcomes than standard adjuvant therapy and/or improve breast conservation rates. When longer term outcomes (for example, disease free survival, overall survival) were shown not to be better, attention turned, as Professor Smith highlights, to trying to replace adjuvant with neoadjuvant studies, which would give outcome data many years earlier.

Results

Conclusion