OBJECTIVES:
* Assess in-situ protein expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), HER-2, and p53 by automated quantitative analysis (AQUA™) and multiplexed analysis at 2 markers per slide using tumor tissue from women with stage I, stage II, or stage IIIA breast cancer treated on clinical trial SWOG-9313.
* Assess the main effects of ER, PR, HER-2, and p53, as well as interactions to generate classes formed by clustering of biomarkers, on a large breast cancer tissue microarray to predict disease-free and overall survival of patients who received high-dose cyclophosphamide and doxorubicin hydrochloride on clinical trial SWOG-9313.
OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study. Patients are stratified according to receptor status and menopausal status.
Tumor tissue samples are analyzed by quantitative protein expression analysis (AQUA™, a fluorescent antibody technique) for estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, p53 and HER-2. AQUA™ is used to assess markers individually and as ratios with the use of clustering algorithms to define reproducible classifications of tissue from patients treated on SWOG-9313 as a function of molecular classification.
Results of the AQUA™ testing are compared to immunohistochemistry and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) results obtained on SWOG-9313.