RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Clinical and Pathological Response to Primary Chemotherapy in Patients with Locally Advanced Breast Cancer Grouped According to Hormonal Receptors, Her2 Status, Grading and Ki-67 Proliferation Index JF Anticancer Research JO Anticancer Res FD International Institute of Anticancer Research SP 1621 OP 1625 VO 29 IS 5 A1 MIGLIETTA, LOREDANA A1 VANELLA, PAOLA A1 CANOBBIO, LUCIANO A1 PARODI, MARIA ANGELA A1 GUGLIELMINI, PAMELA A1 BOCCARDO, FRANCESCO YR 2009 UL http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/29/5/1621.abstract AB Objectives: Biological markers that reliably predict clinical and pathological response to primary systemic therapy may have considerable clinical potential; this study evaluated response compared to expression of ER, PgR and Her2, grading and Ki-67 proliferation index before and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced breast cancer (LABC). Patients and Methods: Fifty-five patients received neoadjuvant chemotherapy for LABC. The incidence of clinical and pathological responses was assessed with respect to basal clinical stage, absent/low vs. high ER and PgR status, low vs. high proliferation index, grading and Her2 overexpression. Results: Overall, 30 patients (54%) underwent downstaging of their primary tumor; pathological complete remission was observed in only one patient with Her2 positive breast tumor. Patients with pre-treatment Ki-67 >20%, Her2 overexpression, T2b/T3 vs. T4 clinical stage achieved higher response rate. Conclusion: The future of neoadjuvant therapy lies in tailoring treatment to individual patients by identifying response predictors; although the number of patients reported is small, this study confirms that clinical stage at diagnosis, Ki-67 reduction and Her2 overexpression are predictive of tumor response to neoadjuvant regimens.