title: Is the differentiation into molecular subtypes of breast cancer important for staging, local and systemic therapy, and follow up?
abstract: Breast cancer complexity has long been known and investigated. After a first classification of the disease based on histology features, starting from the 1980s breast cancers have been distinguished on the basis of oestrogen receptor expression and later according to HER2. By 2000 the "microarray revolution" had shown that the phenotypic differences between breast cancers were a reflection of their mRNA expression profiles, while the more recent "genomic revolution" is revealing the genomic bases of breast cancer heterogeneity. However, how this huge amount of data and knowledge translate into clinically relevant practice is currently not clear. In the present review we discuss how the different breast cancer classification methods might translate into improved clinical guidelines with regard to staging, therapy, and follow up of patients with breast cancer.
authors.affiliation: BrEAST Data Centre, Department of Medicine, Institut Jules Bordet, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium; Breast Cancer Translational Research Laboratory, Institut Jules Bordet, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
authors.forename: Amir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sonnenblick
authors.affiliation: Breast Cancer Translational Research Laboratory, Institut Jules Bordet, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
authors.forename: Debora
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fumagalli
authors.affiliation: Breast Cancer Translational Research Laboratory, Institut Jules Bordet, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
authors.forename: Christos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sotiriou
authors.affiliation: BrEAST Data Centre, Department of Medicine, Institut Jules Bordet, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. Electronic address: martine.piccart@bordet.be.
authors.forename: Martine
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Piccart
mesh_terms: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy / Q000379:methods; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; C508053:ERBB2 protein, human
keywords: Breast cancer; Follow-up; Molecular subtypes; Staging; Systemic therapy; mRNA expression