C-ERBB-2 EXPRESSION AND BENEFIT FROM ADJUVANT CHEMOTHERAPY AND RADIOTHERAPY OF BREAST-CANCER

Frozen tissue from primary tumours of 152 premenopausal breast cancer patients, who participated in a trial comparing radiotherapy with adju vant chemotherapy (cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, 5-fluorouracil, CMF ), was analysed for c-erbB-2 protein expression, measured by flow cyto metry. The relative risk of distant recurrence or death in the chemoth erapy group as compared with the radiotherapy group was 3.0 (95% confi dence interval (CI) 1.1-7.8) for patients whose tumours showed high c- erbB-2 levels and 0.87 (95% CI 0.43-1.7) for those with tumours with l ow levels of c-erbB-2 protein. Patients with highly proliferative tumo urs that did not overexpress c-erbB-2 benefited most, in terms of surv ival, from CMF. In addition, we found an increased risk of locoregiona l recurrence for tumours overexpressing c-erbB-2 when radiotherapy was replaced by chemotherapy.