Resumen de Current controversies in the management of breast cancer

Ignacio Tusquets Trias de Bes, Laura G. García Estévez, Encarna Adrover, Lourdes Calvo Martínez, Isabel Álvarez, Jesús García Mata, Yolanda Fernández Pérez, Miguel Ángel Seguí Palmer, Montserrat Muñoz, César Augusto Rodríguez Sánchez, Álvaro Rodríguez Lescure, Ramón Colomer Bosch, Pedro Gascón Vilaplana, Miguel Martín Jiménez, Emilio Alba, Agustí Barnadas i Molins, Antonio Llombart Cussac, Joan Albanell Mestres, Ana Lluch Hernández

• The following manuscript summarises the content of the Breast Symposium that was held in May 2008 in Barcelona in which four controversies regarding the management of breast cancer were discussed. The design of the symposium included two speakers per controversy, one in favour and one diverging, and the audience had to vote before and after the presentations to assess changes in the participants’ views. The four controversies included: the role of non-conventional predictive factors in selecting treatment for breast cancer; the role of surgery in disseminated disease; are taxanes indicated in the adjuvant treatment of patients with lymph-node-negative disease?; is treatment with tamoxifen (TAM) always required after surgery in patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS)? The symposium concluded with the presentation titled: ‘Features of a well designed clinical trial in the adjuvant treatment of breast cancer’.