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Purpose: To investigate whether the estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) can improve the Nottingham Prognostic Index (NPI) in the classification of patients with primary operable breast cancer for disease-free survival (DFS)., Patients and Methods: The analysis is based on 1,927 patients with breast cancer treated between 2000 and 2005 at the University Hospitals, Leuven. We compared performances of NPI with and without ER, PR and/or HER2. Validation was done on two external data sets containing 862 and 2,805 patients from Oslo (Norway) and Auckland (New Zealand), respectively., Results: In the Leuven cohort, median follow-up was 66 months, and 13.7% of patients experienced a breast cancer-related event. Positive staining for ER, PR, and HER2 was detected, respectively, in 86.9%, 75.5%, and 11.9% of patients. Based on multivariate Cox regression modeling, the improved NPI (iNPI) was derived as NPI - PR positivity + HER2 positivity. Validation results showed a risk group reclassification of 20% to 30% of patients when using iNPI with its optimal risk boundaries versus NPI, in a majority of patients to more appropriate risk groups. An additional 10% of patients were classified into the extreme risk groups, where clinical actions are less ambiguous. Survival curves of reclassified patients resembled more closely those for patients in the same iNPI group than those for patients in the same NPI group., Conclusion: The addition of PR and HER2 to NPI increases its 5-year prognostic accuracy. The iNPI can be considered as a clinically useful tool for stratification of patients with breast cancer receiving standard of care.

Sixteen consecutive patients with pure ovarian immature teratoma have been treated at The Norwegian Radium Hospital between 1975 and 1987. The median age was 22 years. Thirteen patients had International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) Stage I disease and three had Stage III disease. None of the patients with Stage I disease had bilateral disease. In nine patients at least one ovary was conserved. Four cases were Grade 1, seven cases Grade 2, and five cases Grade 3. Adjuvant treatment consisted mainly of Adriamycin (Adria Laboratories, Columbus, OH). The chemotherapy regimen appeared to be highly effective because all patients are alive without evidence of disease (median follow-up, 85 months). No severe toxicity was observed. In patients without residual tumor after primary surgery, the authors prefer the adjuvant treatment with Adriamycin because this treatment has a lower toxicity and is as effective as combination chemotherapy (vincristine, dactinomycin, and cyclophosphamide or cisplatin, vinblastine and bleomycin). Some comments on initial surgery and second-look surgery are also given.