Breast cancer prognostic factors

A number of potential prognostic factors have been identified for breast cancer. Prognostic factors are measurements available at diagnosis or time of surgery that in the absence of adjuvant therapy are associated with recurrence rate, death rate, or other clinical outcome. 

Ross JS, Fletcher JA. The HER-2/neu oncogene in breast cancer prognostic factor, predictive factor, and target for therapy. Oncologist 1998 3 237-252. 

McGuire WL. Breast cancer prognostic factors evaluation guidelines. J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 1991 83 154-155. 

The two variables most strongly associated with the occurrence of breast cancer are gender and age. Although one commonly thinks of breast cancer as a disease confined to women, about 1,720 cases of male breast cancer were projected to be diagnosed in the United States in 2006.1 When stage and other known prognostic factors are controlled for, men do not fare any differently from their female counterparts and receive similar treatment regimens. 

Tumor size and the presence and number of involved axillary lymph nodes are primary factors in assessing the risk for breast cancer recurrence and subsequent metastatic disease. Other disease characteristics that provide prognostic information include histologic subtype, nuclear or histologic grade, lymphatic and vascular invasion, and proliferation indices. 

C6. Contesso, G., Jotti, G. S., and Bonadonna, G., Tumor grade as a prognostic factor in primary breast cancer. Eur. J. Cancer Clin. Oncol. 25, 403-409 (1989). 

J2. Janicke, F., Schmitt, M., Pache, L., Ulm, K., Harbeck, N., Hoffer, H., and Graeff, H., Urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) and its inhibitor PAI-1 are strong and independent prognostic factors in node-negative breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res. Treat. 24, 195-208 (1993). 

Spyratos, F., Martin, P.-M., Hacene, K., Romain, S., Andrieu, C., Ferrero-Pous, M., Deytieux, S., Le Doussal, V., Tubiana-Hurlin, M., and Brunet, M., Multiparametric prognostic evaluation of biological factors in primary breast cancers. J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 84, 1266-1272 (1992). 

B. Uzzan, P. Nicolas, M. Cucherat, G.Y. Perret, Microvessel density as a prognostic factor in women with breast cancer A systematic review of the literature and metaanalysis, Cancer Res. 64 (2004) 2941-2955. 

Breast cancer patients with the same stage of disease can have markedly different clinical outcomes. Traditional diagnostic and prognostic factors may stratify patients with molecularly distinct diseases into the same group based on morphological assessments. It remains a critical issue to reliably identify specific breast cancer patients at high risk for recurrent and metastatic disease. Molecular prediction is the future direction of personalized cancer care. 

Hayes DF, Isaacs C, Stearns V. Prognostic factors in breast cancer current and new predictors of metastasis. J Mammary Gland Biol Neoplasia 2001 6 375-392. 

Sacchini V, Zurrida S, Andreoni G, Luini A, Galimberti V, Veronesi P, Intra M, Viale G, Veronesi U. Pathologic and biological prognostic factors of breast cancers in short- and long-term hormone replacement therapy users. Ann Surg Oncol 2002 9(3) 266-71. 

Descotes, F., Pavy, J. J., and Adessi, G. L. 1993. Human breast cancer Correlation study between HER-2/new amplification and prognostic factors in an unselected population. Anticancer Res. 73 119-124. 

Grizzle, W. E., Myers, R. B., and Oelschlager, D. K. 1995. Prognostic biomarkers in breast cancer Factors affecting immunohistochemical evaluation. Breast 7 243-250. 

Thor, A.D., S.M. Edgerton, S. Liu, D.H. Moore, 2nd, and D.J. Kwiatkowski. 2001. Gelsolin as a negative prognostic factor and effector of motility in erbB-2-positive epidermal growth factor receptor-positive breast cancers. Clin Cancer Res. 7 2415-24. 

Menard, S., Fortis, S., Castiglioni, F., Agresti, R., and Balsari, A. 2001. HER2 as a prognostic factor in breast cancer. Oncology 61(Suppl. 2), 67-72. 

Bundred NJ. Prognostic and predictive factors in breast cancer. Cancer Treat Rev 2001 ... 

Harbeck N, Alt U, Berger U et al (2001) Prognostic impact of proteolytic factors (urokinase-type plasminogen activator, plasminogen activator inhibitor 1, and cathepsins B, D, and L) in primary breast cancer reflects effects of adjuvant systemic therapy. Clin Cancer Res 7 2757-2764... 

---