Value of different biological markers in prediction of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer

Background and purpose:Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is an excellent model for evaluation of predictive parameters.The goal of predictive parameters is to select patients who would most likely benefit from neoadjuvant chemotherapy.The objective of this study was to investigate the predictive value of biological markers for the patients' response to neoadjuvant anthracycline combined with taxanes chemotherapy.Methods:We investigated 160 patients with breast cancer who underwent 4 cycles of neoadjuvant anthracycline combined with taxanes chemotherapy,retrospectively.The expression of estrogen receptors(ER),progesterone receptors(PgR),Her2,Topo-Ⅱ and Ki-67 proteins were detected by immunohistochemical assay in core-needle biopsy specimens.The associations between biological markers as well as clinical and pathologic responses were analyzed.Results:The overall clinical response was 85%,including 28.8%(46/160) with clinical complete response(cCR) and 56.3%(90/160) with clinical partial response.The pathological complete response(pCR) was 14.4%.In the univariate analysis,absence of ER,PgR expression and over-expression of Her-2 were predictive of the cCR and pCR(P0.05).Over-expression of Her-2 remained as an independent variable in predicting the cCR in multivariate analysis(P=0.011).Absence of ER was the only parameter that maintained statistical significance in predicting the pCR(P=0.001).Conclusion:Overexpression of Her-2 and negative hormonal receptor status are much more likely to respond to neoadjuvant taxane and anthracycline chemotherapy.They could also serve as predictive markers to neoadjuvant taxane and anthracycline combination.