The mission of the Milan Breast Cancer Conference has been from its very beginning to provide state-of-the-art information on breast cancer research. The conference aims to achieve a balance of clinical, translational, and basic research, providing a forum for interaction, communication, and education for a broad spectrum of health professionals, researchers, and those with special interest in breast cancer.

The Milan Breast 2013 program has been developed around a fundamental concept: Breast cancer is not a single disease. Specific biological processes and distinct gene pathways are associated with prognosis and sensitivity to chemotherapy, radiotherapy and targeted agents in different subtypes of breast cancers. A challenge for future treatment of patients with breast cancer will be to distinguish pathways that modulate tumor growth, proliferation and stroma. Therapeutic interactions within each of these compartments will probably provide additional benefit to patients with the disease.

Keeping this in mind, also locoregional treatment will become personalized according to specific characteristics of the disease with the ultimate aim to maximize efficacy while minimizing the extent of treatment.

The program will address a clear perspective: The need for clinicians to keep pace with the rapidly growing body of knowledge on new molecular pathways, targets, biomarkers, drugs, genomic technologies at the same time, and update skills of care givers to integrate and use such new technologies in daily clinical practice.