Prognostic Relevance of Circulating Tumor Cells in Molecular Subtypes of Breast Cancer.

ABSTRACT: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can be detected in the peripheral blood of breast cancer patients with early and metastatic disease. Recent data suggest that immune pathologic characteristics between the primary tumor, metastatic colonies and CTCs are discordant and that CTCs possess an independent phenotype that is associated with prognosis and treatment efficacy. Large scale gene expression analysis has provided the possibility to stratify breast cancer according to the gene expression fingerprint of primary tumor tissue into five intrinsic molecular subtypes which can be associated with different clinical outcome. As a consequence of the different prognostic power of primary tumors' characteristics and CTCs several groups have started to investigate if CTCs might be disseminated differen

SUBMITTER: Banys-Paluchowski M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4397936 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature