Annals of Oncology Advance Access originally published online on October 22, 2007
Annals of Oncology 2008 19(1):68-72; doi:10.1093/annonc/mdm358
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breast cancer |
Determination of the specific activity of CDK1 and CDK2 as a novel prognostic indicator for early breast cancer


1 Department of Breast and Endocrine Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University
2 Sysmex Corporation, Kobe, Japan
* Correspondence to: Dr S. Noguchi, Department of Breast and Endocrine Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, 2-2-E-10 Yamadaoka, Suita City, Osaka 565-0871, Japan. Tel: +81-6-6879-3772; Fax: +81-6-6879-3779; E-mail: noguchi{at}onsurg.med.osaka-u.ac.jp
Background: We recently established a novel assay for specific activity (SA) of cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) using small tumor samples (
8 mm3). The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic significance of CDK1SA and CDK2SA in human breast cancer.
Methods: CDK1SA and CDK2SA were determined in 284 breast cancer patients and their prognostic significance was investigated.
Results: Tumors with high CDK1SA and high CDK2SA showed significantly poorer 5-year relapse-free survival than those with low CDK1SA and low CDK2SA, respectively (66.9% vs 84.2% for CDK1SA; 43.6% vs 83.6% for CDK2SA). Moreover, combined analysis of CDK1SA and CDK2SA enabled the classification of breast tumors into high-risk and low-risk groups, where tumors in the high-risk group were strongly associated with unfavorable prognosis (5-year relapse-free survival 69.4% for the high-risk group and 91.5% for the low-risk group). Multivariate analysis showed that the risk determined by combined analysis of CDK1SA and CDK2SA is a significant (hazard ratio 3.09, P < 0.001) prognostic indicator for relapse, especially in node-negative patients (hazard ratio 6.73, P < 0.001).
Conclusion: Determination of CDK1SA and CDK2SA may be useful in the prediction of outcomes in breast cancer patients and has potential for use as a routine laboratory test.
Key words: breast cancer, cycline dependent kinase, prognosis
Both authors contributed equally to this manuscript Received for publication February 27, 2007. Revision received June 12, 2007. Accepted for publication June 14, 2007.