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Just a few years ago, the idea of gene profiling of tumors was viewed as a futuristic concept that would change our approach to patient prognosis and management. Clinical oncologists are arriving at that future — they receive a constant flow of new information on tumor-gene expression and its potential clinical applications. U.S. researchers, some of whom are employees of a biotechnology company, describe a 186-gene invasiveness signature (IGS) and its association with overall and metastasis-free survival in patients with breast cancer.
The IGS was based on genes that were differentially expressed between tumorigenic (CD44+CD24–/low) breast-cancer cells (thought to represent breast-cancer stem cells) and normal breast epithelial cells. The I…