Molecular Prediction of Therapeutic Response and Adverse Effect of Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer is considered to be relatively sensitive to chemotherapy, and multiple combinations of cytotoxic agents are used as standard therapy. Chemotherapy is applied empirically despite the observation that not all regimens are equally effective across the population of patients. Up-to-date clinical tests for predicting cancer chemotherapy response are not available, and individual markers have shown little predictive value. A number of microarray studies have demonstrated the use of genomic data, particularly gene expression signatures, as clinical prognostic factors in breast cancer. The identifi cation of patient subpopulations most likely to respond to therapy is a central goal of recent personalized medicine. We have designed experiments to identify gene sets that will predict treatmentspecifi c response in breast cancer. Taken together with our recent trial of construction of a high-throughput functional screening system for chemosensitivity-related genes, studies for drug sensitivity will provide rational strategies for establishment of the prediction system with high accuracy and identifi cation of ideal targets for drug intervention.