In the online “early view” section of the journal Cancer there is a new research article proposing that using three currently-used immunohistochemical breast markers in a group of patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy, doctors can sub-type cancers similar to those described by molecular profiling.  They also suggest these sub-types are associated with different responses to treatment and overall survival. While only the abstract is free on this site to non-journal subscribers, the results and conclusions in the abstract are very interesting so I thought it would be worth posting.

My take on this is that using the currently used panel of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and her2/neu (also known as ERBB2), the researchers could place patients into several different breast cancer sub-types that matched the ones described by molecular studies (such as luminal A, triple negative, etc). They showed that using these three markers, some subtypes have the best response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy but unfortunately have a worse overall survival.  I believe the study also highlights the importance of thorough pathologic examination of the breast post-neoadjuvant chemotherapy as they suggest there is a difference in those patients who have a complete response (meaning no carcinoma left in the breast or lymph nodes) versus a partial response to the therapy.

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