Ricerc@Sapienza

.Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women worldwide, and ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological
malignancy. Women carrying a BRCA1/2 mutation have a very high lifetime risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.
The only effective risk-reducing strategy in BRCA-mutated women is a prophylactic surgery with bilateral mastectomy
and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. However, many women are reluctant to undergo these prophylactic surgeries due

Background: The heterogeneity of metastatic breast cancer (MBC) necessitates novel biomarkers allowing stratification of patients for treatment selection and drug development. We propose to use the prognostic utility of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) for stratification of patients with stage IV disease.Methods: In a retrospective, pooled analysis of individual patient data from 18 cohorts, including 2436 MBC patients, a CTC threshold of 5 cells per 7.5 ml was used for stratification based on molecular subtypes, disease location, and prior treatments.