The therapeutic options for patients with noninvasive or invasive breast cancer are complex
and varied. In many situations, the patient and physician have the responsibility to jointly
explore and select the most appropriate option from among the available alternatives. With
rare exceptions, the evaluation, treatment, and follow-up recommendations in these
guidelines are based on the results of past and present clinical trials. However, there is not a
single clinical situation in which the treatment of breast cancer has been optimized with …

The 2002 NCCN Breast Cancer Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology represent the 7th
annual update produced by a multidisciplinary panel of breast cancer experts from the
NCCN member institutions. The Breast Cancer Panel uses an objective, evidence-based
method when high-level evidence from clinical trials exists. In clinical situations in which
high-level evidence is lacking, recommendations are generated through a multidisciplinary
consensus development process. The NCCN institutions also review the complete guideline …