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WASHINGTON (AP) - More breast cancer patients are being offered chemotherapy before surgery instead of afterward — amid much debate about how to do it right and when it's a good option. Doctors have long known that having chemo first sometimes shrinks an advanced tumor enough that a woman can undergo smaller surgery and keep her breast.
What's new is the hope that it may help more women with earlier-stage cancer in a different way: by letting doctors switch drugs if the tumor doesn't respond right away. Wait until after surgery, and there's no way to measure the drugs' effect.
Does it really work? There's the rub: Studies show it doesn't endanger a woman to have chemo before surgery — but so far, the hoped-for better survival hasn't been proven either.
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