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BACKGROUND: Increasing evidence supports the use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) prior to surgery for breast cancer. However, the optimal timing between NAC and surgery had yet to be fully elucidated. This meta-analysis aims to assess how the optimal interval time (OTT) between NAC and surgery affects outcomes in breast cancer, providing additional evidence for clinical practice and future research. METHODS: PubMed, Web of Science and Cochrane Library databases in English were systematically searched for this systematic review. All included studies investigated the variations in surgical timing following NAC and their effects on breast cancer outcomes. The endpoints included the rate of pathological complete response (pCR), overall survival (OS), recurrence free survival (RFS), and disease-free survival (DFS). This study has been registered with PROSPERQ. RESULTS: = 36.2 %, p = 0.195 for heterogeneity) exhibited decreasing RFS, compared with those with OTTs of8weeks vs < 4 weeks and 4-8weeks vs < 4 weeks. CONCLUSION: Our systematic review and meta-analysis indicate that the optimal interval following NAC for breast cancer patients might be within four weeks, as delays exceeding eight weeks could be associated with poorer clinical outcomes. However, additional research is necessary to validate these preliminary findings.
Wang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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