title: Efficacy of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy with TEC regimen on breast cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study aims to investigate the efficacy of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy with TEC regimen (taxotere-epirubicin-cyclophosphamide) in the treatment of breast cancer (BC) patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Total of 118 BC patients were recruited from the Department of Breast Surgery in Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2012, in this study. The clinical data and serum samples were collected from each patient prior to the study. All patients were given four cycles of TEC chemotherapy before surgery.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The overall response rate of TEC regimen in the treatment of BC was 67.8% (80/118), clinical complete response rate was 3.4% (4/118), and clinical partial response rate was 64.4% (76/118). Furthermore, we found that age, tumor size, lymph node metastasis and clinical stages of patients had no statistically significant difference (all P > 0.05). Both negative ER status and negative PR status were statistically related to better response (P = 0.033 and P = 0.024, respectively) when compared with the positive ER status and positive PR status, while such association was not observed between the negative HER-2 status and positive HER-2 status (P > 0.05). In addition, the efficacy of triple-negative breast cancer was significantly better than that of luminal A, luminal B and HER-2+ cancers (all P < 0.05), but there was no significant difference among the HER-2+, luminal A, luminal B groups (all P > 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study support the view that BC cases under the TEC chemotherapy were related to higher overall response rates; and the chemotherapy with the TEC regimen could be served as an effective therapy in the treatment of BC.
authors.affiliation: Department of Breast Surgery, Shengjing Hospital, China Medical University, Sanhao Road No. 36, Heping District, Shenyang, 110022, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Long
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Jiao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Wen-Hai
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000971:Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology; D003520:Cyclophosphamide / Q000627:therapeutic use; D005047:Etoposide / Q000627:therapeutic use; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D020360:Neoadjuvant Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D043823:Taxoids / Q000627:therapeutic use; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D003520:Cyclophosphamide; D005047:Etoposide; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D043823:Taxoids; C508053:ERBB2 protein, human