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Abstract: Breast cancer is the most common malignancy affecting women. It is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in Europe and the United States. Despite several improvements in early diagnosis, surgical techniques and hormone-, immune- and chemotherapy, this disease remains a threat to life for a large number of women. Moreover, providing individual treatment with low toxicity but maximum benefit is still an unsolved problem.
Neoadjuvant chemotherapy using anthracycline-containing regimes is a standard therapy for patients with locally advanced breast cancer and is increasingly used for early-stage operable disease. The main goal of neoadjuvant chemotherapy is to eliminate potential micrometastasis, thus improving disease-free survial.
Pharmacogenetics is aimed at understanding and predicting an individual's drug response based upon genetic variation.

In this pharmacogenetic project we investigate a set of heritable genetic factors in drug-metabolizing enzymes that might predict drug-induced anti-tumor response and toxicity of anthracycline-based neoadjuvant therapy in breast cancer, based upon multigenetic analysis.