Department of Medicine, Kyung Hee University Graduate School, Seoul, Korea.
J Breast Cancer. 2011 Dec;14(4):283-8. doi: 10.4048/jbc.2011.14.4.283. Epub 2011 Dec 27.
A chemotherapy response assay test is performed to evaluate the degree of tumor growth inhibition by a chemotherapeutic agent. Several studies have been done on its usefulness; however, to the best of our knowledge, only a few studies concerning the relationship between chemotherapy response assay test results and breast cancer patients' prognoses have been conducted. Thus, we performed this study to analyze this relationship.
Among breast cancer patients who underwent curative surgery and neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy between August 2004 and December 2009, 102 were enrolled in this study. Chemotherapeutic regimens for patients were doxorubicin plus taxane or doxorubicin plus cyclophosphamide followed by taxane. We divided these patients into two groups (sensitive group [n=19] and resistant group [n=83]) and analyzed the relationship between chemosensitivity results and patient prognosis.
The sensitive group was associated with poor disease-free survival (DFS) (p=0.003) and overall survival (OS) (p<0.001). No significant differences were observed in tumor histology (p=0.548), tumor size (p=0.479), number of metastatic lymph nodes (p=0.326), histologic grade (p=0.077), or nuclear grade (p=0.216) between the two groups. However, in respect to molecular subtype, the HER2-positive type and triple negative breast cancer were more frequently observed in the sensitive group (p=0.001). In a univariate and multivariate analysis for DFS, doxorubicin sensitivity was significantly associated with a poor prognosis (p<0.05).
Better chemosensitivity results are associated with a poor prognosis in breast cancer patients who have undergone anthracycline- and taxane-based chemotherapy, however, examination of additional cases and the use of a longer study period are needed.
化疗反应测定试验用于评估化疗药物对肿瘤生长抑制的程度。已经进行了几项关于其有效性的研究；但是，据我们所知，仅有少数研究涉及化疗反应测定试验结果与乳腺癌患者预后之间的关系。因此，我们进行了这项研究来分析这种关系。
在 2004 年 8 月至 2009 年 12 月期间接受根治性手术和新辅助或辅助化疗的乳腺癌患者中，共有 102 例患者入组本研究。患者的化疗方案为多柔比星联合紫杉类或多柔比星联合环磷酰胺，然后联合紫杉类。我们将这些患者分为两组（敏感组[19 例]和耐药组[83 例]），并分析了化疗敏感性结果与患者预后之间的关系。
敏感组与不良无病生存（DFS）（p=0.003）和总生存（OS）（p<0.001）相关。两组之间肿瘤组织学（p=0.548）、肿瘤大小（p=0.479）、转移淋巴结数（p=0.326）、组织学分级（p=0.077）或核分级（p=0.216）无显著差异。然而，在分子亚型方面，敏感组中 HER2 阳性型和三阴性乳腺癌更为常见（p=0.001）。在 DFS 的单变量和多变量分析中，多柔比星敏感性与不良预后显著相关（p<0.05）。
在接受蒽环类和紫杉类化疗的乳腺癌患者中，更好的化疗敏感性结果与不良预后相关，但是需要检查更多病例并使用更长的研究时间。
