Vorhersage von erkrankungsverlauf und therapieansprechen durch molekulare marker beim mammakarzinom

Breast cancer is - like other carcinomas - a disease characterised by certain genetic events in the course of carcinogenesis. It is important to gain a better understanding of the nature and time course of those events. Simultaneously, many efforts have been made to avoid either over- or under-therapy and to classify tumors better according to their aggressivity and therapy. For achieving a better classification of tumors, the existing established clinical and histopathological parameters are not sufficient. Regarding the heterogeneity of tumors, multigen analyses offer a promising prospect to establish such gene profiles as new prognostic and predictive markers and evaluate them for clinical use. For some RNA-based concepts, clinical studies for validation and therapy are already being planned. Also, first clinical data for DNA-based techniques describing epigenetic phenomena have been validated. Their correlation with disease progress and therapy response is significant and reproducible. Still before such molecular tests can be used for everyday clinical practice, certain quality criteria have to be fulfilled. Also as long as there is no reliable methodical and clinical validation of the existing data, the use of multigen analyses in breast carcinomas should be limited to clinical studies.