Special Considerations in Patients with Early-Stage Breast Cancer and Survivors.

Multidisciplinary care is the standard for the treatment of breast cancer. Even among women with early-stage breast cancer, the multiple subtypes and various treatment pathways involve coordination of care plans among multiple providers. Nuances exist in defining treatment strategies for specific subtypes of cancer and for different subsets of breast cancer.

The Effect of Lumpectomy and Cavity Shave Margin Status on Recurrence and Survival in Breast-Conserving Surgery.

Background/objective: Cavity shave margins (CSMs) decrease rate of positive margins and need for re-excision. Recurrence data following breast-conserving surgery (BCS) are not always available in large cancer registries. We sought to define our recurrence and survival data in BCS with routine excision of CSMs.

Impact of the 21-gene recurrence score assay compared with standard clinicopathologic guidelines in adjuvant therapy selection for node-negative, estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer.

Background: The development of multigene assays has proved useful in the clinical management of early-stage breast cancer. The 21-gene recurrence score (RS) assay has been shown to quantify risk of distant recurrence and predict chemotherapy benefit in node-negative and node-positive, estrogen-receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer patients. Small, single-institution series have shown that, compared with standard clinicopathologic criteria, use of RS significantly affects adjuvant chemotherapy recommendations.