Randomized Neoadjuvant Study of Epirubicin and Docetaxel With/Without Capecitabine in Early Breast Cancer

This study is a prospective, randomized, multicentre, phase III trial in the neoadjuvant treatment of patients with primary breast cancer and no distant metastases. Patients will be stratified at inclusion according to the centre, to the clinical tumour stage (T1, T2, T3, T4a-c), the axillary lymph node status (positive, negative), the menopausal status (pre-menopausal, post-menopausal), histology (invasive ductal, invasive lobular, mixed), the hormone-receptor status (positive \[ER+/PR+, ER+/PR-, ER-/PR+\], negative \[ER-/PR-\], not determinable\]), the HER-2 status (positive, negative, not determinable), the grading (G1/G2, G3, not determinable) and will be randomly assigned to receive either 6 cycles of neoadjuvant epirubicin, docetaxel and capecitabine ± trastuzumab in HER-2 positive disease or 6 cycles of neoadjuvant epirubicin and docetaxel ± trastuzumab in HER-2 positive disease.