Does the Timing of Surgery after Neoadjuvant Therapy in Breast Cancer Patients Affect the Outcome?

Background:There is a paucity of literature examining the impact of timing of surgery after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Objective:This study aimed to analyze the impact of the time taken to initiate surgical treatment following completion of neoadjuvant chemotherapy on patients’ outcomes by evaluating their pathological response, overall survival (OS), and disease-free survival (DFS). Methods:This is a retrospective review of 611 patients diagnosed with stage II and III breast cancer that received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery between January 2004 and December 2014. The data was collected from a prospectively gathered registry. The patients were stratified into three cohorts according to the time of surgery after neoadjuvant chemotherapy: