Bhumsuk Keam Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Seock-Ah Im Department of Internal Medicine and Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Hee-Jun Kim Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Do-Youn Oh Department of Internal Medicine and Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Jee Hyun Kim Department of Internal Medicine and Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Se-Hoon Lee Department of Internal Medicine and Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Eui Kyu Chie Department of Radiation Oncology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Wonshik Han Department of Surgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Dong-Wan Kim Department of Internal Medicine and Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Woo Kyung Moon Department of Radiology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea, , Tae-You Kim Department of Internal Medicine and Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , In Ae Park Department of Pathology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Dong-Young Noh Department of Surgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Dae Seog Heo Department of Internal Medicine and Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Sung Whan Ha Department of Radiation Oncology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea , Yung-Jue Bang Department of Internal Medicine and Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Correlation between clinicopathological variables and response rate

Potential traditional predictive factors (age, performance, stage, nuclear grade, histologic grade, ER, PR, p53, c-erbB2, bcl-2 and Ki-67) were analyzed. Table 3 compares radiologic RR and predictive factors. pCR was correlated with radiologic RR (p = 0.018). pCR and radiologic RR according to ER/PR/c-erbB2 are summarized in Table 4. Patients with triple negative breast cancer showed higher RR (83.0% in triple negative vs. 62.2% in non-triple negative, p = 0.012).

 

Correlation between clinicopathological variables and survival

The results of univariate analyses for RFS and OS were shown in Table 5. Responding to neoadjuvant chemotherapy did not affect RFS or OS. Among the parameters investigated, low histologic grade, positive ER, positive PR, positive bcl-2 and low level of Ki-67 were associated with prolonged RFS in univariate analysis. In addition, positive ER and positive bcl-2 were associated with prolonged overall survival (OS) in univariate analysis. In terms of stage, initial clinical stage reflects RFS and OS more precisely than pathologic stage. Kaplan-Meier plots (Figure 1) show the survival curve according to clinical and pathologic stage.