Potential Refinement of Recurrence Score by pSTAT3 Status.

Albert Grinshpun,Luna Kadouri,Aviad Zick,Tamar Peretz,Benjamin Nisman,Yogev Cohen,Gabriela Oprea,Tanir M Allweis,Beatrice Uziely,Amir Sonnenblick,Tamar Hamburger

doi:10.3390/genes13030438

Abstract

The likelihood of recurrence in breast cancer patients with hormone receptor-positive (HR-positive) tumors is influenced by clinical, histopathological, and molecular features. Recent studies suggested that activated STAT3 (pSTAT3) might serve as a biomarker of outcome in breast cancer patients. In the present work, we have analyzed the added value of pSTAT3 to OncotypeDx Recurrence Score (RS) in patient prognostication. We have found that patients with low RS (<26) and low pSTAT3 might represent a population at a higher risk for cancer recurrence. Furthermore, we have observed that a positive pSTAT3 score alone can be a favorable marker for patients with HR-positive breast cancer under the age of 50. In an era of personalized medicine, these findings warrant further appraisal of chemotherapy benefit in this population.

Highlights

Recent advances in the field of personalized medicine have deepened our understanding of how to integrate clinical parameters with molecular tools to prognosticate patients
DFS analysis according to the pSTAT3 score did not show a statistically significant difference between the ‘negative’ groups and the ‘positive’ group (Figure 3a, p = 0.109)
DFS analysis according to the pSTAT3 score showed a statistically significant difference between the ‘negative’ groups and the ‘positive’ group when adjusted by age at diagnosis (Figure 3b, p = 0.03)

Summary

Introduction

Recent advances in the field of personalized medicine have deepened our understanding of how to integrate clinical parameters with molecular tools to prognosticate patients. Multiple additional tools are being studied to aid the prognostication process and provide clinically relevant information of the benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy [4–6]. In patients with breast cancer, STAT3 has several key roles in tumor development and progression, as shown by numerous studies [4,7,8,12–14]. We and others have shown the prognostic and predictive roles of phospho-STAT3 (pSTAT3) in breast cancer, mainly in luminal tumors [4,5,12–16]. In the current preliminary work, we sought to determine whether pSTAT3 can add additional prognostic information to RS results and guide better clinical decision making

Tissue Analysis

Statistical Analysis

Findings

Discussion

Conclusions