Assessment of prognostic factors in breast cancer

Prognostic factors predict the long term outcome of treatment, recurrence rate and overall survival. Treatment decision is based on assessment of prognostic factors. They are classified as clinical (age, menopausal status, tumoral growth rate, inflammatory signs), histological (tumoral stage, pathological type, grading, tumoral necrosis, lymph nodes status, margins status) and biological factors (steroidal receptors pattern, ploidy etc). There are tumor markers currently evaluated, being considered conventional and new markers that are not usually evaluated. Patients with negative lymph node will show no recurrences after surgery and/or radiotherapy in 70% of the cases. Factors with specific prognostic value are used for deciding on the therapeutic strategy in negative axillary node cases.