ABSTRACT
Breast cancer accounts for over 350,000 deaths per year worldwide, and therefore, this disease has a major impact on the health of women (Ferlay et al. 2000). Table 12.1 summarizes some key points related to breast cancer. Early diagnosis and treatment are critically important in affecting the outcome of breast cancer. Until now, many screening methods have been applied to the routine diagnosis of breast tumors, either benign or malignant, which include clinical examination, ultrasound, and mammography for identifi cation. Among these screening modalities, mammography is most effective in screening asymptomatic women of different ages and acceptable to most women. Nevertheless, mammography has a few intrinsic limitations regarding the size of tumor. Unless a tumor becomes at least a few millimeters in size, it is diffi cult to detect the clonal origin of cancer by using mammographic screening (Ding et al. 2008). Thus, there remains a need for the use of tumor markers in the diagnosis, monitoring, and classifi cation of breast cancer.
