Why it's done

Chemotherapy for breast cancer may be given in the following situations:

Chemotherapy after surgery for breast cancer

After you have surgery to remove the breast cancer, your doctor may recommend chemotherapy to destroy any undetected cancer cells and reduce your risk of the cancer recurring. This is known as adjuvant chemotherapy.

Your doctor may recommend adjuvant chemotherapy if you have a high risk of the cancer recurring or spreading to other parts of your body (metastasizing), even if there is no evidence of cancer after surgery. You may have a higher risk of metastasis if cancer cells are found in lymph nodes near the affected breast.

Chemotherapy before surgery for breast cancer

Chemotherapy is sometimes given before surgery (known as neoadjuvant therapy or preoperative chemotherapy) to shrink larger cancers. This may:

• Allow the surgeon the best chance of removing the cancer completely
• Enable the surgeon to remove only the cancer, rather than the entire breast
• Decrease the extent of disease in lymph nodes, allowing for less invasive lymph node surgery
• Decrease the chance the cancer will return
• Help your doctor understand how well your cancer responds to chemotherapy, which helps clarify prognosis and the best chemotherapy drug choice

Neoadjuvant therapy is often used for:

• Inflammatory breast cancer
• HER2-positive breast cancer
• Triple-negative breast cancer
• High-grade breast cancers
• Cancers that have spread to the lymph nodes
• Larger breast cancers

Chemotherapy as the primary treatment for advanced breast cancer

If breast cancer has spread to other parts of your body and surgery isn't an option, chemotherapy can be used as the primary treatment. It may be used in combination with targeted therapy.

The main goal of chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer is generally to improve quality and length of life rather than to cure the disease.