Association of c‐erbB2‐gene amplification with poor prognosis in non‐inflammatory breast carcinomas but not in carcinomas of the inflammatory type

It is now accepted that c‐crbB2‐gene amplification is correlated with poor clinical outcome for patients, mainly when axillary nodes are invaded. We have confirmed this result by multivariate analysis in 178 patients with non‐inflammatory breast cancer followed up for a mean period of 6.8 years (SD, 1.6 years). In addition, we have shown that c‐erbB2 amplification, found in 30 (17%) specimens, was associated with a high risk of multiple metastases developing simultaneously. In contrast, for the 67 patients with inflammatory breast carcinoma, the most aggressive type of breast carcinoma, the c‐erbB2 amplification detected in 24 (36%) specimens was not found to be associated with a higher risk of death, suggesting that the oerbB2 gene plays a different role in the progression of these 2 types of breast cancer. Furthermore, our data stress the importance of the methodological approach used to determine gene amplification. Although Southern blot hybridization is a tumour‐ and time‐consuming method not easy to adopt in routine clinical practice, this method remains a reference quantitative method.