New Approaches to Classification and Diagnostic Prediction of Breast Cancers

Book excerpt: Despite many years of translational research in breast cancer, very few new biomarkers have been implemented for clinical use beyond estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER2. The main reason is that many promising biomarkers are clinically validated but lack analytical and clinical utility. One explanation is that proper validation of the predictive ability of the biomarker in independent datasets, and with a pre-planned statistical analysis, is not always performed. Thus, there is a need to identify new biomarkers or new ways to subclassify breast cancer patients that are reproducible and easy to implement in the clinical setting but, more importantly, that improve patient’s outcomes.