An Eighteen-Gene Classifier Predicts Locoregional Recurrence in Post-Mastectomy Breast Cancer Patients

We previously identified 34 genes of interest (GOI) in 2006 to aid the oncologists to determine whether post-mastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) is indicated for certain patients with breast cancer. At this time, an independent cohort of 135 patients having DNA microarray study available from the primary tumor tissue samples was chosen. Inclusion criteria were 1) mastectomy as the first treatment, 2) pathology stages I-III, 3) any locoregional recurrence (LRR) and 4) no PMRT. After inter-platform data integration of Affymetrix U95 and U133 Plus 2.0 arrays and quantile normalization, in this paper we used 18 of 34 GOI to divide the mastectomy patients into high and low risk groups. The 5-year rate of freedom from LRR in the high-risk group was 30%. In contrast, in the low-risk group it was 99% (p < 0.0001). Multivariate analysis revealed that the 18-gene classifier independently predicts rates of LRR regardless of nodal status or cancer subtype.