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Breast Cancer Biology and Clinical Characteristics

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Breast Cancer Epidemiology

Abstract

While breast cancer is often studied as a single disease, advances in our understanding of the epidemiology, biology, and molecular basis for breast cancer indicate that it is a heterogeneous disease that can be divided into several distinct subtypes. Proper classification of breast tumors into relevant subtypes is important for studying breast cancer etiology, predicting clinical course, and making decisions related to breast cancer treatment. Distinctions between subtypes of breast cancer can be made on the basis of patient characteristics or according to phenotypic or genotypic characteristics of the tumor itself, such as tumor stage, grade, histology, and genetic profile. While the motivation and methodology behind these different classification systems varies, there is great overlap between the subtypes of disease they describe. Nevertheless, the distinctions between subtypes of disease highlighted by these classifications not only translate to differences in clinical outcome, they also imply important differences in tumor etiology.

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    Amanda I. Phipps & Christopher I. Li

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Phipps, A.I., Li, C.I. (2010). Breast Cancer Biology and Clinical Characteristics. In: Li, C. (eds) Breast Cancer Epidemiology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0685-4_2

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