Current controversies in the management of early breast cancer

Medical professionals in general, and medical oncologists in particular, have highly stressful practices because they are under constant pressure to have the highest-quality, up-to-date evidence available in order to make the right decision for each individual patient. From a practical point of view, being updated on oncological and other medical specialties may seem an insurmountable task because the number of scientific publications has increased dramatically. The use of systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials or the application of results obtained from high-quality randomised controlled trials are some of the most common ways to address this need. Unfortunately, they do not cover all complex clinical situations that the majority of medical oncologists face in their outpatient consultations. In this review, we report the conclusions achieved in a multi-expert meeting where five important controversies in the treatment of breast cancer were analysed. Five highly experienced medical oncologists were required to defend an affirmative answer and another five were required to defend a negative answer for each of the clinical questions. After that, a one-day meeting was organised to debate each clinical question and to reach a consensus. We report here the content of this multi-expert meeting along with the conclusions drawn.