Breast cancer, factors affecting therapy

It is apparent from clinical and laboratory experiments and observation that the spread of breast cancer via the bloodstream occurs early in the course of the disease. This results in patients relapsing with systemic metastatic disease following local curative therapy. The likelihood of later development of metastatic disease is related to the size of the primary tumor, presence of lymph node involvement and number of nodes affected, and a number of additional pathologic prognostic factors, which include proliferative capacity, nuclear grade, hormone receptor status, and presence or absence of oncogenes and other protein products. Systemic adjuvant therapy is commonly... 

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