ER, PgR, Ki67, p27Kip1, and histological grade as predictors of pathological complete response in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy using taxanes followed by fluorouracil, epirubicin, and cyclophosphamide concomitant with trastuzumab

Table 1 Patient and tumor characteristics at baseline and their relationship with pCR

	pCR	non-pCR	pCR rate (%)	p-value
Menopausal status
Premenopausal	27	24	52.9
Postmenopausal	57	21	73.1	0.019*
Clinical tumor size
T1	4	2	66.7
T2	56	25	9.1
T3	15	11	57.7
T4	9	7	56.2	0.62
Clinical nodal status
N0	27	14	65.9
N1	39	20	66.1
N2	11	6	64.7
N3	7	5	58.3	0.96
Clinical stage
I	1	1	50.0
IIA	26	11	70.3
IIB	24	14	63.2
IIIA	19	10	65.5
IIIB	7	4	63.6
IIIC	7	5	58.3	0.97
Type of Taxanes
Paclitaxel	78	39	66.7
Docetaxe	6	6	50.0	0.40
HG
High (3)	77	33	70.0
Low (1–2)	7	12	41.2	0.005*
ER
Negative (<1 %)	66	18	78.6
Positive (≥1 %)	18	27	40.0	<0.001*
PgR
Negative (<1 %)	70	23	75.3
Positive (≥1 %)	14	22	38.9	<0.001*
Ki67
High (≥30 %)	67	26	72.0
Low (<30 %)	17	19	47.2	0.008*
p27^Kip1
Low (<75 %)	66	27	71.0
High (≥75 %)	18	18	50.0	0.025*

pCR, pathological complete response; HG, histological grade; ER, estrogen receptor; PgR, progesterone receptor
*p < 0.05 was considered significant; all significant values are shown in bold

ISSN: 1471-2407