Correlation between elevated intratumoral thymidine phosphorylase and prognosis of node-positive breast carcinoma undergoing adjuvant doxifluridine treatment

We determined intratumoral thymidine phosphorylase (dThdPase) activity in 2 13 patients with T2N0M0 or T2N1M0 breast cancer. After surgery doxifluridin e, an intermediate metabolite of capecitabine, and tamoxifen were given by mouth. According to dThdPase activity the examined patients were classified as: A, high activity Stoup; tumors with the activity not less than the mea n value and B, low activity group; tumors with activity less than the mean value. Group A had a better prognosis than group B in node-positive patient s (disease-free survival, p=0.0446; overall survival, p=0.0788). Intratumor al dThdPase activity might be a useful marker for predicting responsiveness to doxifluridine treatment in the adjuvant setting.