8TH MILAN BREAST CANCER CONFERENCE

CONFERENCE

Dear Colleague,

It is a pleasure for us to welcome you to the 8th Milan Breast Cancer Conference – a conference of innovations in patient care. Creating a forum for discussion between faculty members and audience has been the aim of our conference from the very first day of its birth. The conference will continue to be based upon new information, consolidated knowledge, and interaction on controversial issues regarding diagnosis, treatment strategies and disease prevention. The eighth assembly of this conference will provide, we hope, a friendly, stimulating environment for the presentation of innovation, ongoing and future research on breast cancer.
This year’s conference will focus, more than in the past, upon two important features. The first relates to tailored approaches to patients with the disease. Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease, which presents in very different ways and in patients who have very different biological, social and human characteristics. The opportunities for a tailored surgery and radiation therapy are greater than ever in the past. Histopathological assessment, genetics and molecular pathology are integrated into therapeutic decision making strategies and trials are designed to raise the yield of profiling for treatment choice. The prejudice of a "one size fit all" is being increasingly challenged by focusing on how diversity should be used to improve treatment outcome. The availability of targeted systemic treatments, like an increased number of endocrine agents and monoclonal antibodies, which become part of the adjuvant treatments offered to women with the disease, indicates a significant progress in care and an incentive for further developments based upon molecular medicine technology. It is a general trend to focus on tailoring therapeutic approaches for the individual patient. Targeted therapies are therefore the main feature of the European Institute of Oncology Award Lecture at the opening of the conference. As in the past, refinements of multidisciplinary approaches include surgery, intra and postoperative radiation therapy to obtain the best local disease control and minimize the side effects of proper treatment. Part of such programs include also preoperative systemic therapies aimed at allowing a more efficient control of local disease and at obtaining information on tumor regression with specific therapies to improve knowledge on tailoring of treatment. The 2006 Milan Breast Cancer Conference continues also to provide knowledge on special problems of specific subpopulations, like women with autoimmune disorders or survivors of malignant lymphomas, at need of special considerations of care.
A second aspect relates to the changing features (and costs) of care and the need to prioritize prevention, diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. This is a new challenge for research to provide tools for both a better understanding of the disease and for the sake of an improved use of available resources.
The Conference continues to inform on broader aspects of innovation in care, from diagnosis and therapeutics, from the premalignant lesion to adjuvant therapies, palliation and support. Breast cancer prevention and aspects of nutrition are dealt with focusing on very specific aspects of lifestyle and related features.
Milan, a capital of breast cancer research, has now built up a tradition of being a venue for innovation. Reports on new surgical approaches, improved radiation treatments, and advances in medical therapies are a guarantee, as in the past, for an exciting and fruitful discussion.

Welcome! We hope you have an enjoyable and inspiring conference.

Umberto Veronesi and Aron Goldhirsch

CONFERENCE CO-ORDINATORS
S. Cinieri - M. Colleoni - S. Zurrida