Prediction of biological behaviour of human breast cancer using multiple parameters. A preliminary study.

Prediction of early metastases in individual patients has been attempted by combined evaluation of a battery of recognised parameters such as blood vessel invasion (BVI) of tumor cells, Barr body frequency (BBF), plasminogen activator (PA), collagenase, estradiol receptors (ER), progesterone receptors (PgR), and peroxidase activity (PRA) in 18 malignant and 3 benign (control) breast tumors. Since breast tumor cells spread through the blood vessels, the cases were divided into BVI (+) and BVI (-) groups. Results show that in the former group, all the cases had poor prognosis and two even had distant metastases within one year. In BVI (-) group, 9 out of 12 appeared to have good prognosis.