International Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Pathology

The most common cancer among women in the urban Indian population is breast cancer and it is second only to cancer of the cervix in the rural population. Breast cancer is no longer seen as a single disease but rather a multifaceted disease comprised of distinct biological subtypes with diverse natural history, presenting a varied spectrum of clinical, pathologic and molecular features with different prognostic and therapeutic implications. One important aspect of the role of Pathology in the evaluation of breast cancer is biomarker testing, specifically the accurate assessment of the Estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and Her2 neu status of a patient's breast cancer. Biomarkers can be prognostic, predictive, or both. Prognostic biomarkers are independent measures of prognosis such that the presence or absence of the biomarker is associated with a patient's overall clinical outcome.