Companion Algorithms™
Breast Cancer
Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers and the second leading cause of cancer death in women. Recent advances in the understanding of breast cancer biology have lead to the development of a wide variety of treatment therapies.
Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is the current standard of care for selection of patients for anti-hormone therapy by estrogen (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) expression, and for Herceptin® therapy by HER2 protein expression. ER and PR are important predictors of patient response to endocrine therapy and over-expression is indicative of better prognosis¹. The HER2 gene is amplified in 18-20% of breast cancers resulting in over-expression of the HER2 protein². HER2 positivity is associated with poorer prognosis and is also predictive of patient therapy including Herceptin therapy³⁻⁴.
BioImagene offers image analysis algorithms* with the Virtuoso digital pathology software as an aid to pathologists in the quantitative assessment of biomarkers. Algorithms available for breast cancer analysis are ER, PR, HER2, Ki-67 and p53. The final result may be percent positivity, an Allred score or a score of between 0-3+, depending upon the biomarker.
1. Gown A. Mod Pathol 2008 21,S8–S15
2. Wolff AC, et al. Arch Pathol Lab Med 2007 131
3. Slamon D, et al. Breast Cancer Res Treat 2005 94:S5 (supp 1; abstr 1)
4. Joensuu H, et al. N Engl J Med 2006 354:809–820
*BioImagene products are FDA cleared for specific clinical applications and are intended for research use for other applications.
