Individualization of breast cancer based on histopathological features and molecular alterations.

Histopathological findings and molecular alterations well reflect the biological properties of individual primary breast carcinomas. Specifically, pT (size of the invasive component), pN (number of metastatic lymph nodes), histological or nuclear grade, lymphovascular invasion, hormone receptors, and HER2 (c-erbB-2) gene overexpresson or amplification are known to be effective markers for assessing the risk of operable primary breast carcinoma, albeit incompletely. It is expected that additional molecular markers and novel diagnostic tools will be developed in the future to facilitate a more accurate characterization of higher risk node-negative breast carcinomas.