This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Tissue microarrays identified intrinsic subtype, predicted value of chemotherapy in breast cancer
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
2009 ASCO Breast Cancer Symposium
Using tissue microarrays collected from women who participated in CALGB 9344, researchers found the addition of adjuvant paclitaxel to doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide improved survival in patients with early node-positive breast cancer.
Torsten O. Nielsen, MD, PhD, an associate professor in the department of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, presented the results at the 2009 Breast Cancer Symposium. Women with aggressive intrinsic subtypes such as HER-2–positive and basal breast cancer benefited from the addition of paclitaxel (Taxol, Bristol Myers Squibb), but that was not the case for all women in the study.
“In the luminal A women, the most common group, we saw no benefit from adding paclitaxel,” Nielsen said. “There is no apparent benefit to adding paclitaxel to these node-positive women on top of the AC chemotherapy backbone.”
There were 790 women with luminal A tumors, 340 with luminal B, 444 with core basal, 221 with HER-2– enriched and 93 with ER-negative/HER-2/nonbasal disease.
Nielsen said results from the tissue microarrays showed substantial agreement with previous whole-section HER-2 and clinical ER data. He added that multivariate analysis showed intrinsic subtype was prognostically significant (P<.001).
Core basal status also predicted benefit from the addition of paclitaxel (P=.003). Ki67 status was prognostic but not predictive.
“The tissue microarray approach gives similar results to what could be obtained with more tedious, expensive and slower work on whole sections,” Nielsen said. – by Jason Harris
For more information:
More from the 2009 ASCO Breast Cancer Symposium>>
