Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Marseille, Laboratoire d'Oncologie Moléculaire, UMR 891 INSERM, Institut Paoli-Calmettes, Marseille, France.
Metastasis is the major cause of death in breast cancer patients. Gene-expression studies have shown that the likelihood of metastasis can be predicted from analysis of primary tumors. Two recent papers in BMC Medicine and BMC Cancer have established new operational expression signatures containing a limited number of genes involved in angiogenesis or cell proliferation.