Adjuvant Therapy

Definition

Adjuvant therapy is an auxiliary therapy (e.g. ovarian ablation) administered concomitant with another therapy (e.g. surgery or radiation)in the treatment of primary breast cancer.

Characteristics

As defined in Webster’s Deluxe Unabridged Dictionary adjuvant is:

• 1. ‘an assistant’;

• 2. ‘in medicine, a substance added to a drug to aid in the operation of the principal ingredient’ (e.g. Freund’s adjuvant in immunotherapeutic research).

In clinical cancer research and treatment any therapy that in some way helps another modality is considered an ‘adjuvant’. Most of the time cancer therapy is a multidisciplinary endeavor involving specialists from many treatment modalities.These specialists include (but are not limited to) medical oncologists, surgical oncologists and radiation oncologists. As more specific and targeted drug treatments become available, specialists in biologic and immunotherapeutic approaches will need to join the multidisciplinary team.

Cancer treatment for many...