Surgery or chemo first

My wife has a 3cm tumor in her right breast (invasive ductal carcinoma with moderate differential), is it ok to surgerically remove it first or is chemo to shrink it first the best treatment?  Is waiting a couple of weeks critical?

[CCF-RN,MSN-JS]

Dear sltennis, The standard of care would be to do surgery first, and then adjuvant chemotherapy.  Adjuvant chemotherapy is given to try to prevent or minimize the growth of microscopic deposits of tumor cells that might grow into a recurrent tumor.
Waiting a couple of weeks for surgery is OK.