Cyclin E as a Prognosticator for Nde Negative, Stage II Breast Cancer

Our laboratory has made the novel observation that cyclin E is overexpressed and present in lower molecular weight (LMW) isoforms in selected breast cancer cells and tumor tissues. in a retrospective analysis of tumor specimens from 403 breast cancer patients, we previously discovered that overexpression of LMW isoforms cyclin E strongly correlated with the development of distant metastases and poor overall survival. With a median follow-up of 4-years 91.7% of breast cancer cases with cyclin E overexpression developed distant metastases compared to 7% of cases without cyclin E overexpression (p 0.001). We also found that in 126 patients with Stage I breast cancer, cyclin E overexpression had a 100% predictive value for the development of metastatic disease. Based on this retrospective work, our goal for this award was to initiate a PROSPECTIVE study assessing the importance of cyclin E overexpression as a negative predictor of outcome in Stage I and II breast cancers. We have been able to accrue over 120 diagnosed with Stage I and II disease, obtained normal and tumor tissue from these patients and subjected them to western blot analysis with cyclin E antibody. We will do follow-up on these patients for the next 3-5 years and correlate the expression of cyclin E to outcome at the end of the follow-up period.