IDENTIFICATION OF SUPERIOR MARKERS FOR POLYMERASE-CHAIN-REACTION DETECTION OF BREAST-CANCER METASTASES IN SENTINEL LYMPH-NODE

Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is being evaluated in breast cancer patients to improve detection of metastases and to guide therapy with minimal morbidity. The use of reverse transcription-PCR analysis to in crease detection of tumor cells in SLN of breast cancer patients is ha mpered by the lack of specific markers. In this study, seven markers w ere evaluated by reverse transcription-PCR for expression in human bre ast adenocarcinoma lines (BrCa) and in normal nodes from noncancer pat ients. Two markers yielded exceptional results; mammaglobin and carcin oembryonic antigen transcripts were detected in 100 and 71% BrCa, resp ectively, and were absent from all normal lymph nodes. These markers w ill be used as components of a multimarker panel to evaluate sentinel nodes in an on-going, multicenter clinical trial.