Gene Expression Profiling of Carcinoma Breast and its, Prognostic Signature: A Review

Gene Expression Profiling of Carcinoma Breast

Abstract

Breast cancer research and clinical care have reached a new era due to the development of modern genetic technologies. In the past, breast cancer diagnosis, prognosis and treatment decisions were based on, clinical and pathological analysis of the breast cancer tissues and axillary lymph nodes. It has been observed that the prognosis and recommendation about treatment based on these features, imperfectly predict the outcome and results in excessive treatment and chemotherapy, with marginal benefits. Hence new methods are needed to understand breast cancer properly, to optimize and individualize the breast cancer treatment and prognosis. The development of the gene microarray techniques has enabled scientists to detect the different gene expression array of thousands of gene simultaneously and thus create a gene expression profile for different types of breast cancers. Gene expression profiling of the breast cancers has improved our understanding of the heterogeneity of breast cancer on the genomic level; challenged the clinical classification of breast cancer; served as an important prognostic indicator and most importantly, begin to guide our treatment in women with early breast cancer. Incorporation of molecular assays into the treatment and planning strategy of breast cancer continues to be a work in progress. This approach is evolving quickly due to strong scientific pieces of evidence to become a standard of practice in the near future. This article provides an overview of the development and application of molecular assays as applied to breast cancer.