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One more thing
AA,
To your list of possibilities not considered I would add that chemotherapy may cause less virulent cancers to mutate into more aggressive ones by continually challenging them and then giving them enough time to recover between treatments. A very similar effect can be seen with antibiotics, which, due to overuse, have now turned ordinary viruses into superbugs that are antibiotic resistant. As you have pointed out, adriamycin, a very widely used chemotherapy in early bc, is an antibiotic. Food for thought.
R.B.,
I think you have hit the nail on the head. Oncologists' and pharmaceutical manufacturers' livelihoods depend on treating as many patients as possible with as many of these drugs as possible. Cynical as it may sound, we need to not lose sight of the fact that bc treatment is a billion dollar industry in the USA. I think this is a big impediment to finding alternative treatments, and the reason why any new drug is automatically combined with chemo in a trial, to see if it can make the chemo work better, rather than determine if it can replace chemo with something less toxic and potentially more effective.
Hopeful
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