ABSTRACT
In many occidental countries, breast cancer represents the most common malignancy in women where it accounts for more than 1 out of 4 cancers. The hormone dependence of this disease has been known for close to a century since Beatson’s report of a complete response to ovariectomy in a premenopausal patient suffering from massive chest wall recurrence. Hormonal interventions, ablative or additive, have remained the hallmark in the treatment of advanced breast cancer until the late fifties when the disease was found to respond to chemotherapeutic agents. Changes in tumor size induced by therapy are a function of tumor growth rate and therapeutic effect. Quantitation of drug effect must therefore be related to both parameters. More complete data derived from experimental animal tumor systems suggest that the overall tumor growth rate slows down as tumor volume increases, and is more aptly fitted by a gompertzian function.
