Efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy on breast cancer and dynamic changes of circulating tumor cells / 中国肿瘤临床

ABSTRACT

Objective: This study aims to investigate the neoadjuvant chemotherapy effect of TC and TEC by detecting the change of circulating tumor cells (CTC) in peripheral blood before and after every neoadjuvant cycle of breast cancer patients. Meth-odsA total of 96 locally advanced breast cancer patients were selected in our hospital from January 2010 to December 2012. These pa-tients were divided into TC (docetaxel and cyclophosphamide) group and TEC (docetaxel, epirubicin and cyclophosphamide) group. Ve-nous blood (5 mL) was extracted from 96 patients prior to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, 48 h after the first, second, third, and fourth cy-cles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The CTC values of these two groups of patients were detected by flow cytometry, and their chemo-therapy effect was compared. Results: No significant difference was observed for age, menopausal status, ER, PR, C-erbB-2, tumor size, and clinical stage between the two groups of patients before chemotherapy and for CTC between the two groups before chemother-apy. Before neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the CTC values were correlated with tumor size. The CTC values for patients with tumor size>5 cm were higher than those with tumor size<5 cm. After neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the CTC values of the two groups of patients de-creased (P<0.05), and the CTC values of the TEC group were lower than those of the TC group (P<0.05). Conclusion:After TC or TEC neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the tumors of patients were smaller, and the CTC values were lower than those prior to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy can be evaluated by monitoring the values of circulating tumor cells in pe-ripheral blood changes.