Defining the high-risk breast cancer patient.

Abstract

Predicting the clinical course of a primary breast tumor is very problematic. Some patients are cured by local therapy and survive for many years. Other patients experience a rapid deterioration with early recurrence of their disease, followed shortly by death. It would obviously be useful to be able to identify individual patients who are at high or low risk for relapse in order to plan the appropriate management of the patient’s breast cancer. Patients with a low probability of recurrence could be spared the potential toxicities associated with therapeutic regimens, while patients who are likely to recur could be given the option of aggressive adjuvant therapy. However, before optimal treatment strategies can be initiated, it is also necessary to know which patients are likely to benefit from specific treatment regimens.