Gene Signatures of Breast Cancer Progression and Metastasis

Authors

David I. Rodenhiser, The University of Western Ontario
Joseph D. Andrews, London Health Sciences Centre, London, ON
Theodore A. Vandenberg, The University of Western Ontario
Ann F. Chambers, The University of Western Ontario

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-24-2011

Journal

Breast Cancer Research

Volume

13

Issue

201

URL with Digital Object Identifier

http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/bcr2791

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease. Patient outcome varies significantly, depending on prognostic features of patients and their tumors, including patient age, menopausal status, tumor size and histology, nodal status, and so on. Response to treatment also depends on a series of predictive factors, such as hormone receptor and HER2 status. Current treatment guidelines use these features to determine treatment. However, these guidelines are imperfect, and do not always predict response to treatment or survival. Evolving technologies are permitting increasingly large amounts of molecular data to be obtained from tumors, which may enable more personalized treatment decisions to be made. The challenge is to learn what information leads to improved prognostic accuracy and treatment outcome for individual patients.