Figure 1

Comparative analyses of circulating nucleosomes in blood of tumor patients and healthy individuals. The box plots compare the circulating nucleosome concentrations of healthy individuals (n = 28) with those of patients with benign breast disease (n = 20), primary breast cancer (M0, n = 31) and metastatic breast cancer (M1, n = 32) (A). The statistical significances of these comparative analyses, as determined by the Mann and Whitney-U test for the non parametric comparison of two independent variables, are indicated. The ROC analyses show the profiles of sensitivity and specificity of nucleosome concentrations to discriminate healthy controls from breast cancer patients (B), benign tumor patients from breast cancer patients (C) and M0 from M1 breast cancer patients (D).