To Ascertain Distinctive Gene Expression Patterns for the Prediction of Docetaxel (Taxotere) Chemosensitivity or Chemoresistance in Human Breast Cancer

摘要

Chemotherapy is of proven benefit in reducing the risk of death for a subset of patients with early breast cancer, but doctors have problems deciding exactly who should receive this therapy, and which therapy will be most effective for a given patient. As a result, some patients needlessly receive chemotherapy. Even in those patients who clearly require chemotherapy, doctors cannot identify those patients whose tumors might not be responsive to a particular chemotherapy drug. Chemotherapy is also associated with high costs and toxicity including nausea, vomiting, damage to nerves, etc. and increased risk of infections that are sometimes life threatening. The emerging cDNA array technology provides a means to comprehensively appreciate genetic variations in different breast tumors, and may be utilized as a test for chemotherapy sensitivity. Taxotere has one of the highest response rates in breast cancer, and is widely prescribed for the treatment of breast cancer. The aims of this study are therefore, to investigate and validate differential gene expression patterns from core biopsies from patients whose breast tumors either shrank after Taxotere chemotherapy, or failed to respond. These genes whose expression patterns are associated with Taxotere response could be used to create a simple test of predictor genes to help doctors treat breast cancer more effectively.