Treatment Before Surgery - Cancer Today

Neoadjuvant therapy may be an option.
By Dara Chadwick

Many people assume surgery is the first step in cancer treatment. But for some patients, neoadjuvant therapy—chemotherapy, radiation therapy or hormone therapy given before surgery—can be part of their cancer care.

Neoadjuvant treatment is routinely used for certain breast, esophageal, lung, stomach and rectal cancers, as well as for some sarcomas. Nikesh Jasani, an oncologist at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, says it is typically used to shrink the tumor, allowing the surgeon to preserve all or parts of an organ (for example, the oropharynx in those with head and neck cancer), spare a limb (such as in certain sarcomas), or do a smaller surgery. In addition, in some patients with highly aggressive tumors, Jasani says, “you may have better control of the tumor” if you give chemotherapy before surgery.

When Nancy Touhill of Atlanta was diagnosed in 2015 at age 33 with stage II triple-negative breast cancer, she hadn’t heard of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. But her doctors wanted to see if they could shrink her large tumor, she says

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