An urgent requirement exists for new prognostic and predictive assays in breast cancer. Despite the development of high-throughput technologies such as DNA microarrays, it would now appear that immunohistochemistry (IHC) may play an increasingly important role in the clinical management of breast cancer. In this editorial, the authors discuss the potential prognostic ability of a panel of IHC markers, and question whether this well-established assay technology may in fact allow for improved prognostic and predictive tests in breast cancer.