CLINICAL RELEVANCE OF TUMOR INVASION AND PROLIFERATION FACTORS IN BREAST-CANCER

Prognostic and predictive factors are the prerequisite for risk-adapte d, individualized therapy decisions in primary breast cancer. Establis hed prognostic factors (lymph node status, grading, tumor size, steroi d hormone receptor status) do not achieve optimal identification of hi gh-risk patients. Thus, identification of new and better prognostic fa ctors is a clinically relevant task. In particular, in node-negative b reast cancer patients, new tumor-biological factors are needed as sele ction criteria for adjuvant systemic therapy. For this purpose, factor s describing a tumor's potential for invasion and metastasis (uPA, PAI -1, cathepsin D) or its proliferative activity (S-phase, Ki-67) have b een put forward in the literature. This review focuses on a direct com parison of these two groups of tumor biological factors taking into ac count our own data as well as published results.