Expression data from Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) biopsies from breast cancer patients

This is a stage-matched case control study. Cases with clinical diagnosis of Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) were selected after reviewing all medical records of the 440 FNA samples. IBC was defined as signs of erythema and edema (peau d’orange) involving at least one third of the skin and rapid clinical presentation. Presence of tumor emboli in the dermal lymphatics of the involved skin in the pathology report was not required for inclusion as IBC. Controls were selected to match for T stage, all T4a-c tumors in the data set were included as controls. IBC breast cancer are all T4d breast cancer. We examined if gene expression differences exist between IBC and stage-matched Non-IBC stratified according to hormone receptor and HER2 status. Pre-treatment FNA from primary tumors were obtained and RNA extracted and hybridized to Affymetrix microarrays according to manufacturer protocol.

本研究为分期匹配型病例对照研究。通过检索440份细针抽吸活检（Fine-Needle Aspiration, FNA）样本的全部病历资料，筛选经临床确诊的炎性乳腺癌（Inflammatory Breast Cancer, IBC）病例。炎性乳腺癌的定义为：累及至少1/3乳腺皮肤的红斑、水肿（橘皮征，peau d’orange），且起病迅速的临床表现。纳入炎性乳腺癌病例时，无需病理报告显示受累皮肤真皮淋巴管内存在肿瘤栓子。
对照病例按T分期进行匹配，本数据集内所有T4a~T4c期肿瘤均作为对照病例；炎性乳腺癌均为T4d期乳腺癌。
本研究旨在探究按激素受体及人表皮生长因子受体2（Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2, HER2）状态分层后，炎性乳腺癌与分期匹配的非炎性乳腺癌之间是否存在基因表达差异。
采集术前原发性肿瘤的细针抽吸活检样本，提取RNA后按照生产商实验方案，将其与Affymetrix基因芯片进行杂交。