Background: If detected and treated early, breast cancer has a chance of being cured. Therapy has progressed utilizing multiple chemotherapeutic regimens with great efficacy and minimal toxicity.
Objective: To improve the outcome of patients with early breast cancer by clarifying the most effective adjuvant therapy regimen.
Subjects and methods: In a clinicopathological retrospective study, we included 854 patients with non-metastatic breast cancer patients treated at Medical Oncology Department, Maadi Armed Forces Medical Complex and Medical Oncology Department, Zagazig University; from January 2015 to December 2018.
Results: Most of our study population 505 patients (59.1%) received adjuvant chemotherapy protocol of (4 AC (Adriamycin and Cytoxan) + 4 taxanes), while the 2nd most common used protocol was 6FAC (Fluorouracil, Adriamycin, and Cytoxan), which was received by 17.7% of patients, on the other hand some patients received 4AC, 3AC+3 taxanes and 4TC protocols. Percentage of our patients who were still alive after 4 years of diagnosis were 86.5% (739 patients). Disease recurrence or metastasis occurred in 317 patients (37.1%) during follow up period ranged from 13-84 months, while 537 patients (62.9%) didn't experience either recurrence or metastasis to time of study.
Conclusion: Early breast cancer is considered potentially curable disease. Disease recurrence or metastasis occurred in 37.1% of our patients. Survival rate after 4 years of diagnosis was 86.5%. The FAC protocol has been used in just 17.7% of our patients, but DFS rate of those patients who received FAC was the highest (73.5%), even superior to AC+Taxanes.