[UPA/PAI-1: a tool for breast cancer treatment individualization. Biology, clinical implications and quantification...

The several options for therapy in breast cancer underline the difficulties to determine the reliable population which can be treated by a specific adjuvant therapy, and the population in which that therapy could generate morbidity, mortality, "medical surcharge" without prognosis improvement. This problem is particularly accurate in node-negative breast cancer patients. Adjuvant therapy has been proved to be more efficient, so a better definition of the prognosis and the response to adjuvant treatments could allow the selection of a sub-group of patients who can be spared chemotherapy. The quantification of the uPA/PAI-1 tumor content is one of the most relevant prognostic factors in this clinical setting. The integration of the uPA/PAI-1 prognostic information gathered in the multidisciplinary medical consensus meetings could be used to select the node-negative good/prognosis population in which chemotherapy could be avoided. This review will focus on the uPA/PAI-1 system, its biological role and its clinical implications in breast oncology. The different ways to analyse the uPA and PAI-1 content in tumor cells will be also presented and commented.