Molecular diagnosis of breast cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most prevalent disease and cause of death among women in Northern Europe and the USA. The incidence rate is still increasing, and despite early diagnosis and improved treatment, the mortality is still high. Breast cancer is a very heterogeneous disease and less than 10% of the diagnosed cases are believed to be caused by an inherited factor. The information on tumor specific genomic alterations has dramatically increased during the past decade, and seen in relation to the effect on survival and treatment efficiency, these genomic changes may prove to act as prognostic and predictive factors. The introduction of methods to screen the entire genome for alterations has led to important knowledge of tumor biology, progression and targets of therapy. This chapter describes the different kinds of genomic alterations found in the tumor, the methods to assess them and examples of correlations between the changes and prognostic or predictive parameters © 2006 Springer.