Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is standard therapy for patients with locally advanced breast cancer and is increasingly used for early-stage operable disease.
In recent years, standard combined chemotherapy has been widely used for patients with operable or inoperable CRC, and the clinical prognosis of CRC patients has improved [ 3].
In recent years it has been increasingly used for patients who have operable cancers in order to facilitate breast-conserving surgery, achieve better cosmetic outcome, and improve prognosis by reaching pathologic complete response (pCR).
In the USA, 85% of the wood production industry waste is used for power generation, with approximately 80 operating biomass power plants (and 40 operable but idle plants) located in 19 states across the country [44].
The alternative hypothesis (Ha) used for power computation is that in patients with operable NSCLC a single fraction low dose preoperative radiotherapy increases the frequency of tumour infiltrating CD8+ T cells at least by 50 CD8+ T cells/mm.
Neoadjuvant chemotherapy was initially developed for primary inoperable breast cancer, and is now also widely used in operable but large breast cancer not eligible to breast-conserving therapy (NCCN Guidelines, 2013).
Likewise, primary chemotherapy has been used successfully for large operable breast cancer in nonrandomised and randomised trials (Anderson et al, 1991; Smith et al, 1993; Scholl et al, 1994; Powles et al, 1995; Smith et al, 1995; Bonadonna et al, 1998; Fisher et al, 1998; Von Minckwitz et al, 1999).
The association of trastuzumab and docetaxel is also used as an adjuvant treatment for operable breast cancer [ 10], and in a small number of non-small-cell lung carcinomas [ 11].
The B-18 trial did not demonstrate superiority of neoadjuvant over adjuvant chemotherapy for operable breast cancer, but with equivalent survival and increased BCT, the neoadjuvant approach can safely be used to offer BCT to more women with breast cancer.
A small phase II trial [Bevacizumab and Chemotherapy for Operable NSCLC (BEACON)] has recently opened at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), exploring the use of cisplatin, docetaxel plus bevacizumab versus cisplatin and docetaxel alone as neoadjuvant therapy prior to surgical resection and bevacizumab maintenance therapy in patients with stage IA IIIA operable NSCLC (Kris 2005).
