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Non-Curative Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer

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Cancer: How Worthwhile is Non-Curative Treatment?

Part of the book series: Focus on Cancer ((3292))

Abstract

There are 30 000 new cases of breast cancer per annum in the UK and approximately 15 000 deaths per annum. This means that some 40% of women diagnosed with breast cancer will die of their disease, usually because of the development of distant metastases. During the course of metastatic breast cancer a woman may be exposed to a variety of treatments, including local treatments for specific problems such as radiotherapy and surgery, and systemic treatment such as hormone manipulation and chemotherapy. If all treatments were without toxicity, they would be likely to be considered “worth while” even if objective benefit was only experienced by some of the patients. In practice, not all patients benefit from all treatments and this, together with the economic costs involved, make the question of how worth while is non-curative treatment for breast cancer harder to answer.

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Authors
  1. A. Jones
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Oncology, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, West Smithfield, London, EC1A 7BE, UK

    Maurice L. Slevin MB, ChB, MD, FRCP  & Teresa Tate FRCP, FRCR  & 

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© 1998 Springer-Verlag London Limited

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Jones, A. (1998). Non-Curative Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer. In: Slevin, M.L., Tate, T. (eds) Cancer: How Worthwhile is Non-Curative Treatment?. Focus on Cancer. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1509-0_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1509-0_14

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-76083-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-1509-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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