Promoter methylation-associated loss of expression is a marker of tumour recurrence in human breast cancer-1

Breast cancer. The Y axis indicates the factor of mRNA downregulation in breast cancer specimens (n = 46) relative to a normal breast standard (a pool of 12 normal breast tissue samples) as the fold change (FC) N/T. Unmethylated tumours exhibited ID4 expression (median FC = 1.3) very similar to normal breast cells. In contrast, methylated breast cancer specimens displayed an increased loss of expression (median FC = 12.3). Horizontal lines: group medians; boxes: 25–75% quartiles; vertical lines: range, peak and minimum. . Distribution of time (months) and tumour-related death among 115 breast cancer patients with positive (lower graph) or negative (upper graph) promoter methylation state is shown. Patients harbouring an -methylated tumour have an estimated mean RFS time of 80 months (95% confidence interval: 67–93 months) compared with 101 months (95% confidence interval: 87–115 months) for patients without tumour methylation. See text for details.<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Promoter methylation-associated loss of expression is a marker of tumour recurrence in human breast cancer"</p><p>http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/8/154</p><p>BMC Cancer 2008;8():154-154.</p><p>Published online 30 May 2008</p><p>PMCID:PMC2435120.</p><p>