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A correction has been published: N Engl J Med 2003;348(2):186.

Original Article
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Volume 347:1566-1575 November 14, 2002 Number 20
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Cyclin E and Survival in Patients with Breast Cancer
Khandan Keyomarsi, Ph.D., Susan L. Tucker, Ph.D., Thomas A. Buchholz, M.D., Matthew Callister, M.D., Ye Ding, Ph.D., Gabriel N. Hortobagyi, M.D., Isabelle Bedrosian, M.D., Christopher Knickerbocker, M.S., Wendy Toyofuku, B.S., Michael Lowe, B.S., Thaddeus W. Herliczek, M.D., and Sarah S. Bacus, Ph.D.

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ABSTRACT

Background Cyclin E, a regulator of the cell cycle, affects the behavior of breast-cancer cells. We investigated whether levels of cyclin E in the tumor correlated with survival among patients with breast cancer.

Methods Tumor tissue from 395 patients with breast cancer was assayed for cyclin E, cyclin D1, cyclin D3, and the HER-2/neu oncogene with the use of Western blot analysis. Full-length, low-molecular-weight, and total cyclin E were measured. Immunohistochemical assessments of cyclin E were also made of 256 tumors. We sought correlations between levels of these molecular markers and disease-specific and overall survival.

Results The median follow-up was 6.4 years. A high level of the low-molecular-weight isoforms of cyclin E, as detected by Western blotting, correlated strongly with disease-specific survival whether axillary lymph nodes were negative or positive for metastases (P<0.001). Among 114 patients with stage I breast cancer, none of the 102 patients with low levels of cyclin E in the tumor had died of breast cancer by five years after diagnosis, whereas all 12 patients with a high level of low-molecular-weight cyclin E had died of breast cancer within that period. In multivariate analysis, a high total cyclin E level or high levels of the low-molecular-weight forms of cyclin E were significantly correlated with poor outcome. The hazard ratio for death from breast cancer for patients with high total cyclin E levels as compared with those with low total cyclin E levels was 13.3 — about eight times as high as the hazard ratios associated with other independent clinical and pathological risk factors.

Conclusions Levels of total cyclin E and low-molecular-weight cyclin E in tumor tissue, as measured by Western blot assay, correlate strongly with survival in patients with breast cancer.


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From the Department of Experimental Radiation Oncology (K.K.), the Breast Cancer Research Program (K.K., T.A.B., M.C., G.N.H.), the Department of Biomathematics (S.L.T.), the Division of Radiation Oncology (T.A.B., M.C.), the Department of Breast Medical Oncology (G.N.H.), and the Department of Surgical Oncology (I.B.), University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston; the Division of Molecular Medicine, Wadsworth Center, Albany, N.Y. (Y.D., C.K., W.T., M.L., T.W.H.); and Quantitative Diagnostic Laboratories, Elmhurst, Ill. (S.S.B.).

Address reprint requests to Dr. Keyomarsi at the Department of Experimental Radiation Oncology, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Blvd., Box 66, Houston, TX 77030-4095, or at kkeyomar{at}mdanderson.org.

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Related Letters:

Cyclin E in Breast Cancer
Kang Y., D'Hondt L., André M., Canon J.-L., Yee D., Rabinowitz I., Bedrosian I., Tucker S. L., Keyomarsi K.
Extract | Full Text | PDF  
N Engl J Med 2003; 348:1063-1064, Mar 13, 2003. Correspondence

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