Pathology Considerations in Patients Treated with Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy

Neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) originally reserved for the treatment of inflammatory and locally advanced breast cancers is currently offered to women with earlier-stage and operable breast carcinoma. NAT allows more women to be eligible for breast conservation surgery and provides an opportunity to assess the response of carcinomas to therapy. This review focuses on the predictors of therapeutic response in pretreatment tumor, evaluation of post-treatment breast and lymph node specimens and classification systems to evaluate degree of response to NAT.