Some breast cancers don't respond to chemotherapy

The results of several studies confirm previous reports suggesting that chemotherapy offers little or no survival benefits for young women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancers and, if given, should not be the sole second-phase or adjuvant therapy. A study of 480 pre-menopausal women with early-stage breast cancer enrolled in one of four EORTC (European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer) trials found that the difference in survival rates was minimal between patients who received prolonged adjuvant chemotherapy and those who did not. These results suggest that chemotherapy had a beneficial effect for women with ER-negative tumors, but had minimal or no effect on ER-positive cancers.