OBJECTIVES:
Primary
* To determine if ALDH1 positivity, as determined by IHC staining, identifies a poor prognostic subgroup of women with early-stage breast cancer who have been uniformly treated with adjuvant doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide on clinical trial SWOG-9313.
Secondary
* To determine associations of ALDH1 expression with other known factors that have been determined on clinical trial SWOG-9313, such as estrogen receptor (ER) status, HER2 status, TOPOII, cyclin E, and p27.
* To determine if ALDH1 positivity, as determined by IHC staining, identifies a poor prognostic subgroup within ER and HER2 subgroups in patients treated on clinical trial SWOG-9313.
OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study.
Tumor tissue samples from clinical trial SWOG-9313 are analyzed for ALDH1 expression by IHC.
