Epirubicin in Treating Women Who Are Undergoing Surgery for Stage I, Stage II, or Stage III Breast Cancer

OBJECTIVES: Primary * Determine the complete pathological and clinical response rate in women undergoing surgery for resectable stage I-III breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant dose-intensified epirubicin hydrochloride. Secondary * Determine the toxicity of this regimen in these patients. * Determine the predictive value of HER2 gene amplification and topoisomerase II-alpha gene amplification or deletion for disease progression and pathological and clinical complete response in patients treated with this regimen. * Correlate gene expression profiles with pathologic complete response, clinical complete response, less than complete response, and disease progression in patients treated with this regimen. OUTLINE: Patients receive epirubicin hydrochloride IV on day 1 and pegfilgrastim subcutaneously on day 2. Treatment repeats every 14 days for 4 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Four weeks later, patients undergo partial mastectomy or simple mastectomy plus an axillary staging procedure. After completion of study treatment, patients are followed periodically. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 30 patients will be accrued for this study.