Patients
Institutional databases were reviewed to identify stage I-III breast
cancer patients who received NAC, BCS at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital,
Sun Yat-sen University from 2011 to 2016. This study was approved by the
Institutional Review Board (IRB) (SYSECKY-KS-2020-116)at Sun Yat-sen
Memorial Hospital. All patients were proven to have invasive breast
carcinoma by core needle biopsy. Clinicopathologic data including
demographics, clinical oncologic features (tumor size, nodal stage) and
tumor complete receptor information (ER, PgR, and HER2) was collected.
The clinical and pathologic stages were defined according to the
8th edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer
guidelines. Clinical stage was determined by ultrasound of the breast
and lymph nodes. Lymph nodes with
an abnormal appearance on ultrasound were routinely evaluated with a
core-needle biopsy. A cutoff of 1% was used to determine the HR status
on the core biopsy specimens. Tumors were defined as HER2 positive if
they were 3+ by immunohistochemistry or demonstrated gene amplification
by fluorescence in situ
hybridization13.
Overall pathologic complete response (pCR) was defined as no residual
invasive cancer in the breast or axillary lymph nodes.