ABSTRACT
It is well recognized that breast cancer is a heterogenous disease, with variation in clinical behavior, and that the biological nature of the disease and clinical outcome are closely interlinked. Management of the breast cancer patient is now a carefully planned exercise using a variety of factors which are associated with longer or shorter survival (prognostic factors), and/or can aid selection of relevant systemic therapy (predictive factors). The aim of this second edition of Prognostic and Predictive Factors in Breast Cancer is to provide up-to-date information and views on those factors used clinically and present data on approaches that are presently research but could be the tools for the future. The speed with which things progress is exemplified by microarrays; in the last edition (2003) these were discussed as newer approaches for the future, microarrays are now in clinical trials.
