|
Predictive
biomarkers for anthracycline benefit in early breast cancer:
When do we act?
Joseph Ragaz, MD, FRCPC
|
To view the complete article click
here (pdf format)
With cost and toxicity posing important stumbling blocks for more
rapid deployment of cancer therapies, interest is growing in biomarkers
that can identify which patients will and which will not likely
benefit from costly and potentially toxic treatments. Estrogen receptor
(ER) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status
are well-established key biomarkers for selecting which breast cancer
patients receive hormonal therapies and trastuzumab, respectively,
and both have recently been associated with predictive value for
chemotherapy effectiveness. Multiple biomarkers that combine signals
of multiple genes (as determined by cDNA techniques) are also used
to predict chemotherapy effect, for example the Oncotype 21 gene
assay in North America and the 70-gene MammaPrint (Amsterdam) assay
in Europe. Emerging potentially useful markers include the combination
of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase- 1 (TIMP1) and topoisomerase
II-alpha (TOP2A), described recently by Danish researchers Ejlertsen
et al at the 2008 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS)1 and
discussed below.
To view the complete article click
here (pdf format)
|
