Long-term outcome of the REMAGUS 02 trial, a multicenter randomised phase II trial in locally advanced breast cancer patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy with or without celecoxib or trastuzumab according to HER2 status.

Background: The REMAGUS-02 multicenter randomised phase II trial showed that the addition to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) of trastuzumab in patients with localised HER2-positive breast cancer (BC) increased the pathological complete response (pCR) rate and that the addition of celecoxib in HER2-negative cases did not increase the pCR rate. We report here the long-term follow-up results for disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS).

Patients And Methods: From 2004 to 2007, 340 stage II-III BC patients were randomly assigned to receive neoadjuvant EC-T (four cycles of epirubicin-cyclophosphamide followed by four cycles of docetaxel) +/- celecoxib in HER2-negative cases (n = 220) and ± trastuzumab in HER2-positive cases (n = 120).

Medico-economic impact of MSKCC non-sentinel node prediction nomogram for ER-positive HER2-negative breast cancers.

Background: Avoiding axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) for invasive breast cancers with isolated tumor cells or micrometastatic sentinel node biopsy (SNB) could decrease morbidity with minimal clinical significance.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to simulate the medico-economic impact of the routine use of the MSKCC non-sentinel node (NSN) prediction nomogram for ER+ HER2- breast cancer patients.

Methods: We studied 1036 ER+ HER2- breast cancer patients with a metastatic SNB.

BIRC5 (survivin): a pejorative prognostic marker in stage II/III breast cancer with no response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Purpose: Neoadjuvant systemic therapy (NAC) is currently used in the treatment of stage II/III breast cancer. Pathological complete response as a surrogate endpoint for clinical outcomes is not completely validated for all subgroups of breast cancers. Therefore, there is a need for reliable predictive tests of the most effective treatment.

Characterization of Breast Cancer Preclinical Models Reveals a Specific Pattern of Macrophage Polarization.

Drug discovery efforts have focused on the tumor microenvironment in recent years. However, few studies have characterized the stroma component in patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) and genetically engineered mouse models (GEMs). In this study, we characterized the stroma in various models of breast cancer tumors in mice.