METHODS FOR DETERMINING THE LIKELIHOOD OF SURVIVAL AND FOR PREDICTING LIKELIHOOD OF METASTASIS IN CANCER PATIENTS

摘要

The present invention relatesgenerally to methods of accurately quantifyingtotal HER2 or p95 expression in patients withadvanced breast cancer and correlating HER2 orp95 expression with the risk of brain relapse andtime to brain metastasis (TTBM).cndot. in such patients.Embodiments of the invention describedherein include methods that utilize VeraTaggtechnology to accurately quantify total HER2and p95 protein expression in tumor 30 samplesand correlate HER2 level and the risk of brainrelapse in HER2-positive advanced breast cancerpatients, including patients that receivedtreatment, such as trastuzumab. Embodiments ofthe invention include a novel assay that preciselyquantifies total HER2 expression (H2T),p95 and HER2 homodimers (H2D) in biologicalsamples.