Objective To study the long-term effect of neoadjuvant chemotherapy on advanced breast cancer. Methods The CAF neoadjuvant chemotherapy 〔CTX 500 mg/m2（1st day, 8th day), 5-FU 500 mg/m2（1st day, 8th day), and ADM 30 mg/m2 (1st day) every 3 weeks〕 was carried out in 31 breast cancer patients (stageⅢ,Ⅳ) for 2 cycles before operation, compared with 30 patients (stage Ⅲa) whose therapies were never done and operations could be feasible. Results The overall response rate was 87.1%(27/31). The stages of 19 patients among 31 (61.3%) declined (6 patients to stage Ⅲa, 8 to stageⅡb, 4 to stageⅡa, 1 to stage 0, 1 to complete response and none to pathological complete response). The diseasefree survival time of the patients was 56.3 months which was obviously longer than that of the patients without neoadjuvant chemotherapy (43.5 months, P＜0.05). The 5-year diseasefree survival rate of the patients with neoadjuvant chemotherapy was 38.7% which was a little higher than that (33.3%) of the patients without the chemotherapy, and the two groups had no significant difference. Conclusion The neoadjuvant chemotherapy can reduce the stages of patients with advanced breast cancer, obviously prolong the diseasefree survival time of patients, and reduce or delay recurrence or metastasis.
