Predicting the evolution of metastatic disease in breast cancer: results from 50 years of autopsies

This is a genomic analysis of breast cancer metastasis using array based CGH and is part of a large study investigating the patterns and evolution of metastases from breast cancer using autopsy material accumulated over the last 50 years from a single institution. The samples used in the genomic profiling comprise the primary breast tumour and multiple matched metastases from each patient. The data demonstrate both the clonal nature of metastatic progression and the role of clonal evolution during progression. This study comprises six patients who died of metastatic breast cancer. For some patients the breast primary tumour and lymph node metastasis was obtained from previous surgical excision, otherwise material was obtained from a resulting autopsy. Each patient set of samples involves the primary breast tumour and multiple metastases, including from lung, liver, lymph node, adrenal gland, brain etc. DNA was extracted from formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue blocks and analysed for DNA copy number alterations using an Agilent aCGH platform.