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. 2022 Jul 19;8(1):85.
doi: 10.1038/s41523-022-00451-9.

A perspective on the development and lack of interchangeability of the breast cancer intrinsic subtypes

Affiliations

A perspective on the development and lack of interchangeability of the breast cancer intrinsic subtypes

Francesco Schettini et al. NPJ Breast Cancer. .
No abstract available

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Conflict of interest statement

F.S. and F.B.-M. have no competing financial and non-financial interests. N.M.K. reports the following competing financial interests: advisory and consulting fees from Invitae, G1 Therapeutics, Beyond Spring, Spectrum, BMS, Sandoz, Seattle Genetics, and Total Health all outside the submitted work. As a non-financial competing interest, N.M.K. reports to be among the authors of past and the latest ASCO breast cancer biomarker guidelines updates. A.P. declares no competing non-financial interests but reports advisory and consulting fees from Roche, Pfizer, Novartis, Amgen, BMS, Puma, Oncolytics Biotech, MSD, Guardant Health, Peptomyc, and Lilly, lecture fees from Roche, Pfizer, Novartis, Amgen, BMS, Nanostring Technologies and Daiichi Sankyo, institutional financial interests from Boehringer, Novartis, Roche, Nanostring, Sysmex Europa GmbH, Medica Scientia inno. Research, SL, Celgene, Astellas, and Pfizer; a leadership role in Reveal Genomics, SL; and a patent PCT/EP2016/080056.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Heatplot representing the original, non-commercial PAM50 intrinsic subtypes’ genes, and gene expression patterns.
Median centered unsupervised hierarchical clustering representing the breast cancer intrinsic subtypes (Luminal A, Luminal B, HER2-Enriched, Basal-like) and the Normal-like group, identified using the research-based PAM50 assay on the nCounter® platform, in a set of 527 archived breast cancer fresh-frozen paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples from Dr. Prat’s laboratory. Each column represents a single patient’s sample. The red color represents relatively high gene expression, green represents relatively low gene expression, and black represents median gene expression. The PAM50 gene list is reported on the right side of the heatplot. The unsupervised cluster and heatmap were obtained with R version 3.6.1, Cluster 3.0, and Javatreeview 1.1.6r4 for MacOSX. LumA luminal A, LumB luminal B, Her2 HER2-Enriched, Basal Basal-like, Normal Normal-like.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Main intrinsic/molecular subtypes classifiers and tips to avoid scientific and clinical confusion.
Main intrinsic/molecular subtypes classifiers are resumed in the left boxes. In the right boxes, specific recommendations and a proposal for a new nomenclature of intrinsic/molecular subtypes are included, in order to avoid scientific and clinical confusion due to the lack of interchangeability between the assays. Diverse assays identify related but not identical biologic entities, which can result in different classifications of the intrinsic subtype for the individual patient, depending on the assay that is being used.

References

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