Can you explain neoadjuvant therapy in cancer treatment?

Neoadjuvant therapy: Is typically used when a patient needs a tumor surgically removed but the doctors think it would be best to shrink the tumor some before the surgery actually happens. Neoadjuvant therapy can be chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy. Typically, after a few weeks of this treatment, the surgeons remove the tumor, hopefully with greater success than they would have had before the additional therapy.

Preoperative ChemoRx: Traditionally, chemotherapy is given after surgery, based on the staging information obtained at the time of surgery. However, some cancers are better-treated with chemorx (and/or radiationrx) before surgery. For example, larger breast tumors can be shrunk with chemorx, thus enabling rx by lumpectomy rather than mastectomy; some people w/rectal ca avoid permanent colostomy w/chemo+radrx pre-op.