Independent measurement of the levels of both the estrogen receptors, ERα and ERβ, in breast cancer could improve prediction of benefit from endocrine therapies.
These signatures are enabling improved diagnosis, prognostic classification and more accurate prediction of benefit from chemotherapy for individual patients.
In advanced breast cancer patients, an early study of MAP-tau expression found no prediction of benefit from taxane therapy [ 13].
Treatment-induced, short-term presurgical changes in proliferation and apoptosis have an established role in evaluation of new drugs and show promise for prediction of benefit from existing treatments of primary breast cancer.
These include, for example, molecular subclassification of breast cancer, characterisation of pathways important in breast cancer aetiology and progression of premalignant lesions, and prognostication of natural history or prediction of benefit to specific therapies.
Thus, molecular signatures provide a more accurate representation of BC biological features, allowing prognostication at the time of initial diagnosis, prediction of benefit from adjuvant therapy, and response to NACT (Table 2).
We hereby aimed to find new and superior biomarkers for detection of poor prognosis, and also to suggest new markers for future investigations regarding prediction of benefit from endocrine and/or anti-HER therapy.
Within the adjuvant setting, in the NSABP-B 28 randomized clinical trial, there was no prediction of benefit from paclitaxel but high MAP-tau expression was a positive prognostic marker for improved survival [ 12].
Rather, it is important to stress the need for prospective, properly powered studies, aimed to evaluate the importance of tumoral sampling at time of treatment's start for the molecular prediction of benefit from anti-EGFR MoAbs, but, at the same time, there are no data for supporting the need for biopsies of metastases in the routinary practice.
The use of prevalence differences in our analysis allows for a prediction of benefit from a change in exposure[ 10], with the number of needed interventions, or the number needed to treat (NNT) in order to reduce the household diarrheal burden by 1.
