In Hong Kong, breast cancer is the most common female malignancy, accounting for 15.8% of all newly diagnosed cases and 9.1% of all cancer deaths. The crude incidence rate has increased from 34.6 per 100,000 in 1985 to 42.3 per 100,000 in 1994. We are a major tertiary referral center for the management of breast cancer patients. Over the past five years, the number of patients referred to our center has been steadily increasing to reach over 300 in 2000.

Treatments offered in our center include neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and adjuvant therapy (chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormonal therapy) for early stage breast cancer, salvage therapy (chemotherapy and hormonal therapy) and palliative therapy (radiation therapy and symptomatic medical treatment in non-cytotoxic nature) for advanced disease. There is close inter-departmental liaison with Combined Breast Cancer Clinic, and bi-weekly Combined Breast Cancer Meeting involving the Departments of Clinical Oncology, Surgery, Diagnostic Radiology and Organ Imaging, and Anatomical and Cellular Pathology.

We have continued to enter patients into international collaborative studies and to expand our interest in quality of life studies as well as investigating new therapeutic approaches.