[GEFPICS’ guidelines for management of breast cancer tissue samples in the neoadjuvant setting]

Aurélie Maran-Gonzalez, Camille Franchet, Raphaëlle Duprez-Paumier, Martine Antoine, Catherine Barlier, Véronique Becette, Anca Berghian, Cécile Blanc-Fournier, Eva Brabencova, Emmanuelle Charafe-Jauffret, Marie-Pierre Chenard, Marie-Mélanie Dauplat, Paul Delrée, Clémence Fleury, Christian Garbar, Jean-Pierre Ghnassia, Juliette Haudebourg, Gaëtan MacGrogan, Marie-Christine Mathieu, Patrick Michenet, Frédérique Penault-Llorca, Bruno Poulet, Yves Robin, Pascal Roger, Elisabeth Russ, Isabelle Treilleux, Alexander Valent, Véronique Verriele, Anne Vincent-Salomon, Laurent Arnould, Magali Lacroix-Triki, GEFPICS,

Ann Pathol

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annpat.2019.04.004

Abstract

Neoadjuvant therapy is an increasing treatment option in the management of breast cancer. The tumor response to neoadjuvant therapy, especially the pathological complete response, is a validated endpoint frequently used in clinical trials. However, there is still a lack of standardization for the surgical specimen management in the neoadjuvant setting. This leads to heterogeneity in the specimen handling and might lead to significant bias for the prognostic assessment of patients or in clinical trials. The GEFPICS group, composed of expert breast cancer pathologists, herein presents guidelines for the management of breast and axillary specimen before treatment (management of biopsy, items of the pathological report) and after neoadjuvant therapy (specimen handling, histological assessment of response, items of the pathological report and response grading systems).