The promise of microarrays in the management and treatment of breast cancer.

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy afflicting women from Western cultures. Developments in breast cancer molecular and cellular biology research have brought us closer to understanding the genetic basis of this disease. Recent advances in microarray technology hold the promise of further increasing our understanding of the complexity and heterogeneity of this disease, and providing new avenues for the prognostication and prediction of breast cancer outcomes.

Patterns of resistance and incomplete response to docetaxel by gene expression profiling in breast cancer patients.

Purpose: Chemotherapy for operable breast cancer decreases the risk of death. Docetaxel is one of the most active agents in breast cancer, but resistance or incomplete response is frequent.

Patients And Methods: Core biopsies from 24 patients were obtained before treatment with neoadjuvant docetaxel (four cycles, 100 mg/m(2) every 3 weeks), and response was assessed after chemotherapy.

Genomic approaches in the management and treatment of breast cancer.

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy afflicting women from Western cultures. It has been estimated that approximately 211 000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003 in the United States alone, and each year over 40 000 women will die of this disease. Developments in breast cancer molecular and cellular biology research have brought us closer to understanding the genetic basis of this disease.

Gene expression profiling for the prediction of therapeutic response to docetaxel in patients with breast cancer.

Background: Systemic chemotherapy for operable breast cancer substantially decreases the risk of death. Patients often have de novo resistance or incomplete response to docetaxel, one of the most active agents in this disease. We postulated that gene expression profiles of the primary breast cancer can predict the response to docetaxel.