An overview of contemporary management of breast carcinoma.

Breast cancer mortality has shown little decline over the past several decades. Yet, of all solid tumors, breast cancer remains one of the most responsive tumors to hormonal therapy, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Adjuvant chemotherapy, endocrine therapy, or both is effective in stage II patients, but not all patients benefit. Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease whose biologic behavior is reflected by a variety of prognostic variables. The treatment of advanced breast cancer is still palliative; however, worthwhile complete and partial responses are obtained by using the multimodal therapeutic approach.