Prognostic Biomarkers for Breast Cancer Metastasis

Abstract

Breast cancer treatment has improved rapidly through the years, starting from surgery, to hormonal therapy, to targeted therapy. Despite this, tumor metastasis remains the highest cause of breast cancer–related death. The current regime to deter metastasis is through adjuvant therapy, but such therapy frequently yields undesirable side effects. As such, prognostic markers for metastasis are important to stratify patients for adju- vant therapy so as to ameliorate the standard of living of patients with low metastatic potential. So far, only a few well-characterized prognostic biomarkers for metastasis are used in clinics. This chapter will cover both established and novel prognostic biomarkers for breast cancer metastasis and metastatic breast cancer prognosis. The potential of using these biomarkers as predictive biomarkers or new targeted therapy will also be discussed.