Sensitivity to preoperative chemotherapy varies between breast cancer subtypes
Caroline Barranco
This article has no abstract so we have provided the first paragraph of the full text.
Response to treatment can vary considerably among histologically similar breast cancers. Cancer subtypes have been identified and broadly classified into four categories on the basis of their gene expression profiles. Rouzier et al. examined fine-needle aspiration samples from 82 women with breast cancer, who subsequently underwent 24 weeks of preoperative paclitaxel and doxorubicin-containing chemotherapy. A previously identified 'breast intrinsic' set of 534 genes was used for expression profiling. Tumors were classified into four molecular classes: luminal (n = 30), normal-like (n = 10) basal-like (n = 22) and erbB2+ (n = 20) subtypes. These subgroups had different sensitivities to preoperative chemotherapy, with basal-like and erbB2+ subgroups showing the highest rates of pathological complete response (pCR; both 45%; 95% CI 23–68%) and luminal and normal-like subgroups showing the lowest rates (luminal 6%, 95% CI 1–21%; normal-like, no pCR, 95% CI 0–31%).
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