[Prognostic and predictive factors of invasive breast cancer: update 2009]

Prognostic factors supply information on the course of a disease (recurrence-free and total survival) and are independent of the therapy. The most important prognostic factors are lymph node status, tumor diameter and histological differentiation stage, lymph and blood vessel invasion as well as staging, factors which can all be determined by pathologists. The Nottingham prognostic index (NPI) combines the strongest prognostic factors and according to study results is a suitable model for prognosis of breast cancer. Predictive factors give prior information on the probability of the response of a tumor to a defined therapy and include hormone receptor status, the invasion marker uPA/PAI-1, detection of isolated tumor cells, a residual tumor and the histological resection border.Prognostic or predictive factors are clinically relevant when therapy decisions are made possible by their recognition, which lead to an improvement in the total survival, recurrence-free survival or quality of life. The international consensus recommendation of St. Gallen 2007 requires the following as a basis for risk-adapted therapy decisions: tumor size, stage, age, nodal status, hormone receptor status and Her2 overexpression or amplification status.