Review - Haymarket Media Group

LettertoOurReaders
Dear Colleague,
Each year, we devote an issue to breast cancer. This month, we address several recent reports on advances in the
field and in the care of patients with this disease.
We are still learning how to optimally administer cytotoxic chemotherapy; the manuscript by Sparano and colleagues
is critical in comparing the two principal taxanes available to us, as well as two different schedules of
administration. Survival and toxicity data taken together are essential for establishing optimal taxane therapy in
the adjuvant setting for both standard care and future clinical trials.
Continued exploration into differences in the biologic subtypes of breast cancer determined by hormone receptor
status and HER2 status is helping us to better understand the disease, and what optimal therapies will be, based
on these subgroups of patients. The manuscript by Dawood and colleagues exploring HER2 status in inflammatory
breast cancer and the manuscript by Nguyen and colleagues looking at biologic subtypes associated with
local and distant recurrence after breast-conserving therapy are examples of these advances.
Once a year, it is worthwhile to review the substantial progress we have made in our understanding of breast
cancer and the treatment of this disease. Survival rates have risen dramatically over the last two decades, partly
due to improved screening, but also due to better therapies for these patients.
We appreciate your continued interest in The American Journal of Hematology/Oncology and trust that you will
benefit from the information presented here.
Sincerely,
Lawrence N. Shulman, MD
Editor in Chief, Medical Oncology
November 2008 • Vol 7 • Supplement 5 7