A large proportion of women with lymph node negative breast cancer do not benefit from chemotherapy. Proliferation markers have been shown to recognize patients at high risk for recurrence. The Ki67 protein has recently been included in the St Gallen guidelines. The authors investigated the prognostic importance of cyclin B1 in node negative breast cancer and included a study of reproducibility. In a population-based case-control study, 190 women who died from breast cancer were defined as cases and 190 women alive at the time for the corresponding case's death were defined as controls. Inclusion criteria were tumor size

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Assessment of proliferation is important in female breast cancer and individual treatment decisions are based upon its results, especially in the luminal subgroups. Gene expression analyses fail to group male breast cancer into the intrinsic subgroups previously established in female breast cancer. Even though proliferation has been shown to divide male breast cancer into molecular subgroups with different prognoses, the clinical importance of proliferation markers has not yet been elucidated. Previous studies in male breast cancer have demonstrated contradictory results regarding the prognostic impact of histological grade and Ki-67, parameters strongly associated with proliferation. The aim of the present project was to study proliferation in male breast cancer by assessing other proliferation-related markers viz. cyclins A, B, D1 and mitotic count. A total of 197 male breast cancer cases with accessible paraffin-embedded material and outcome data were investigated. Immunohistochemical stainings were performed on tissue microarrays. Kaplan-Meier estimates and the Cox proportional regression models were used for survival analyses with breast cancer death as the event. The subset of patients with high expression of cyclin A (hazard ratio (HR) 3.7; P ¼ 0.001) and B (HR 2.7; P ¼ 0.02) demonstrated a poorer survival. Furthermore, high mitotic count was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer death (HR 2.5; P ¼ 0.01). In contrast, cyclin D1 overexpression was predictive of better breast cancer survival (HR 0.3; P ¼ 0.001). In conclusion, high levels of cyclin A and B expression and an elevated mitotic count result in a two to threefold higher risk for breast cancer death, whereas cyclin D1 overexpression halves the risk. The clinical utility of these proliferation markers needs further elucidation. Modern Pathology (2013) 26, 87-94; doi:10.1038/modpathol.2012.145; published online 24 August 2012 Keywords: breast cancer; immunohistochemistry; male Male breast cancer represents 0.6% of all breast cancer and because of its rarity, specific treatment guidelines are lacking. Thus, male patients are treated according to the guidelines for female breast cancer. Breast cancer mortality among women has declined during the last decades because of improvements in diagnostic procedures and treatment, but the corresponding observation has not been made in male breast cancer. 1 Recent studies have indicated that males have a poorer survival than females, despite having received adjuvant treatment to the same extent. 2,3 In addition, studies on transcriptional and genomic levels have revealed important molecular differences between male and female breast cancer. In a recent study, Johansson et al 4 performed gene expression analyses in male breast cancer and concluded that male breast cancer tumors could not be classified into the intrinsic subtypes previously established in female breast cancer. In line with these data, comparative genomic hybridization demonstrated significant differences regarding DNA aberrations com...

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More effective treatments are needed for low-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (LGSOC). Our patient, who suffers from metastatic LGSOC, had received all established treatments. Sequencing analysis revealed an activating BRAF mutation. Therefore, combined treatment with BRAF and MEK inhibitors, which is the gold standard in malignant melanoma, was initiated. After eight months of therapy, the response was assessed as complete and the treatment is still, 3.5 years after initiation, of benefit. To our knowledge, no complete response on combined BRAF and MEK inhibitor treatment of low-grade serous ovarian cancer has previously been reported.