Breast+Cancer+Results

__ Current Findings __
Breast cancer treatment is done by a multidisciplinary team of experts that research and develop the best plan of action to fight the cancer. The team consists of surgeons, oncologists, radiologists, and radiation oncologists. The only one that can officially diagnose breast cancer is a pathologist. Pathologists look at tumors and decide if they are benign or malignant. They also grade the tumor and assign it a stage. Each tumor has its own unique histopathology, which is where pathologists look at cell tissues for microscopic disease.

Despite all the clinical prognoses made by histopathology, grading, and staging, breast cancer’s classification for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes still cannot be fully established. It was through immunohistochemistry (IHC) techniques that have allowed researchers to find better ways to treat breast cancer. IHC is used for disease diagnosis, drug development and biological research. Using specific tumor markers, IHC helps identify the cell type and origin of a metastasis to find the site of the primary tumor. IHC is also used in drug development to test drug efficacy by detecting the regulation of disease targets. From this technique, tumors have been able to be sorted into subgroups based by the type of estrogen receptor they have.

These different histological receptor subgroups have been profiled due to gene expression patterns. They are: estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) (Zelnak, 2013). These IHC receptors have been found to be any mixture of positive or negative. From the way the IHC receptors are expressed, they present phenotypic molecular subtypes. These are: Luminal A, Luminal B, HER2, and Basal-like.

Each subtype has certain characteristics and range in their aggressiveness (Pouladi et al., 2014). By understanding these characteristics for each subtype, clinicians are able to prescribe treatments that have greater known effects and determine the patient’s odds of survival (Pouladi et al., 2014). For example, Luminal A subtypes are usually ER- or PR+ and HER2-, allowing a better disease-free and overall survival (Donahue and Genetos, 2013). Luminal B subtypes have low levels of ER and PR but have HER2 amplification (Donahue and Genetos, 2013). Knowing these characteristics allow different regimens of medications.



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