Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Combined With Preoperative Radiotherapy for Locally Advanced Breast Cancer

Approximately 20% of breast cancer patients in our country are in the locally advanced stage. The relatively low overall survival rate, high recurrence rate and distant metastasis risk of these patients significantly affect the therapeutic efficacy and survival. Preoperative radiotherapy is a treatment option for many tumors. It is recommended to administer radiotherapy and systemic chemotherapy before surgery to enhance preoperative tumor downstaging, eliminate micrometastatic lesions and improve overall survival rate. Preoperative radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy for breast cancer patients further shrinks the tumor, increases the probability of breast preservation, and may also eliminate the need for axillary lymph node dissection, thereby improving the quality of life of patients. Pathological complete response (pCR) not only helps with subsequent surgery but also has significant advantages in improving survival rate. Neoadjuvant radiotherapy is also one of the treatment options for reducing tumor stage, but it has not been widely applied to breast cancer patients. Among breast cancer subtypes, Luminal type accounts for 50-70%, among which HR+ HER2- breast cancer patients have poor efficacy from neoadjuvant chemotherapy and pCR rate is below 5-10%. Triple-negative breast cancer accounts for 15-20% of all breast cancer subtypes. It has the characteristics of poor differentiation, strong invasiveness, earlier and more frequent recurrence and metastasis. The efficacy of traditional neoadjuvant chemotherapy has approached its limit. This study aims to explore the efficacy and safety of neoadjuvant radiotherapy for locally advanced breast cancer.