Markers for the identification of late breast cancer recurrence

Ivana Sestak, Jack Cuzick

Postmenopausal women with early breast cancer are at an ongoing risk of relapse, even after successful surgery and treatment of the primary tumor. The treatment of breast cancer has changed in the past few years because of the discovery of prognostic and predictive biomarkers that allow individualized breast cancer treatment. However, it is still not clear how to identify women that are at high risk of a late recurrence. Clinical parameters are good prognostic markers for early recurrence, but only nodal status and, to a lesser extent, tumor size have proven to be strong prognostic markers for late recurrence. Multi-gene signatures have become widely used for the prediction of overall recurrence risk and tailoring administration of adjuvant chemotherapy, but only a few have been shown to be prognostic for late (distant) relapse. There is a need to accurately identify women who may benefit from extended endocrine therapy but also those who may be spared any additional treatment. Recent results from large clinical trials have shown that the research is going in the right direction, and these results might help to optimize extended endocrine therapy for patients with early breast cancer. However, further research is needed to select individual biomarkers or multi-gene signatures that offer identification of late recurrence specifically and thus justify routine use of these tests in the clinical setting.