Improving early breast cancer treatment: the role of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor

Abstract

Breast cancer is still the leading cause of death in patients with malignant tumors. Among women with breast cancer, standard combination chemotherapy with anthracyclines and taxanes reduces mortality from this disease by about one third compared to patients not receiving chemotherapy and is the standard for neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy of breast cancer. Understanding the patterns of tumor growth has made it possible to improve the current paradigms of the treatment of early forms of breast cancer and to use dose-dense chemotherapy regimens to achieve better treatment results. Nowadays, chemotherapy in a dose-dense regimen for breast cancer is the preferred option in all world and Russian clinical guidelines. However, the use of such chemotherapy regimens significantly increases the incidence of side effects, primarily febrile neutropenia. The appearance of more effective methods of supportive care, particularly short-acting and long-acting granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, in clinical practice has made it possible to use dose-dense chemotherapy regimens to increase the effectiveness of the treatment.