Polysomy 17 in Breast Cancer: Clinicopathologic Significance and Impact on HER-2 Testing

Abstract

Polysomy 17 affects HER-2 testing in breast cancer and is a major cause of equivocal results by FISH. We show that tumors displaying polysomy 17 in the absence of HER2 gene amplification resemble more HER-2-negative than HER-2-positive tumors. These findings highlight the need for clinical trials to investigative whether polysomy 17 tumors benefit from HER-2-targeted therapy.