Trial of Chemotherapy and Avastin as Treatment for Women With Breast Cancer at High Risk for Relapse

Women with breast cancer who are not eligible for breast conserving surgery or who have node-involvement are sometimes treated with chemotherapy up front, in hopes of allowing for a woman to keep her breast and decreasing the size of the excision for her breast cancer. While current research has shown that survival is the same whether women are treated with chemotherapy first or surgery first for breast cancer, the investigators do not yet know how to treat women with persistent breast cancer after she has received primary chemotherapy. This study looks at the use of a combination regimen of two agents (gemcitabine and capecitabine), both of which are active in breast cancer, and using Avastin to see if this regimen can be given to women treated with primary chemotherapy and then surgery, considered to be at high risk of relapse.