A Meta-Analysis of Gene Expression Profiling Studies Identifies Clinically Relevant Oncogenic Pathways in Basal-Like Breast Cancer.

Abstract

Abstract Background: Basal-like breast cancer is characterized by an increased risk of early distant relapse.Adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy is the only treatment option available. Understanding the biological heterogeneity of basal-like breast cancer may lead to improved targeted therapies.Methods: 957 systemically untreated patients with early breast cancer were identified from 4 large publicly available datasets. Among these patients, 192 were basal-like according to the “intrinsic gene set” (Sorlie PNAS 2003) and 212 were ER-/HER2- according to “subtype clustering model” (Desmedt CCR 2008). We calculated the hazard ratio (HR) for distant metastasis-free survival for severa..