Mastectomy as an adjunct to combination chemotherapy.

Three patients with metastatic breast carcinoma who had untreated locally advanced primary tumors were treated initially with combination chemotherapy followed by hygienic mastectomy. There was marked regression of the primary tumor in each case after chemotherapy, allowing for a technically simpler mastectomy without skin grafts. There were no serious postoperative complications, or delay in the resumption of systemic chemotherapy in any of them. The postoperative chemotherapy produced complete disappearance of the distant metastases and the patients remain clinically free of disease without local recurrence for 21, 10, and 7 months, respectively. One of these patients had inflammatory carcinoma and did well with this combined approach. These findings suggest a rationale for such an approach in patients with inflammatory carcinoma and may be applicable to patients with stage III breast cancer in whom the primary tumors are locally advanced and technically difficult to resect.