Valproic Acid in Combination With FEC100 for Primary Therapy in Patients With Breast Cancer

Each year, more than 200,000 patients are diagnosed with breast cancer. While recent advances in diagnosis and treatment have rendered a large proportion of these patients curable, many patients still present with either locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer that is not amenable to potentially curative surgery. To enhance the chance of complete surgical resection of the tumor, patients with very large, locally advanced or inflammatory breast cancer will be offered neo-adjuvant therapy. The use of systemic chemotherapy after the surgical therapy for patients with operable disease has been associated with a 25%-35% reduction in the risk of systemic relapse (Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group, 1998) Administration of chemotherapy prior to surgery, also referred to as neoadjuvant chemotherapy is often used in patients with inoperable, non-metastatic breast cancer. However more recently, neoadjuvant therapy has become more commonly used as it allows the direct assessment of response to systemic therapy and the collection of biological markers of therapy that are otherwise difficult to obtain. Furthermore, the relative high response rate allows the ability to surgically remove the tumor and achieve adequate tumor-free margins.