AN OVERVIEW OF PROGNOSTIC MARKERS IN BREAST CANCER

For many years axillary lymph nodes metastasis was the most important prognostic factor to predict the overall and disease free survival and guided the oncologists for institution of chemotherapy in breast cancer cases. However this factor alone or in combination with other parameters like, age of the patient, tumour size, histological type and tumour grade failed to predict the prognosis accurately in number of these cases. In pursuit to achieve the perfection, many new parameters which are biological or molecular in nature have been discovered. It is claimed that these factors not only have the capability to predict the prognosis but are also able to identify 'high risk' group of patients. However analysing all these parameters in a given case is not only cost prohibitive but also not essential. In order to solve this problem few important biological parameters have been reviewed, which are considered to cover all the important facets of the breast cancer. The parameters reviewed are ER, PR, S phase fraction, DNA ploidy, MIB-1 antibody, p53, C-erb-2, nm23, Cathepsin, Topoisomerase II alpha.