Objective：To investigate the relationship between the amplification status of breast cancer HER-2 gene/TOP2A gene and the efficacy of anthracyclines treatment.
Methods：Paraffin-embedded tissues from 58 breast cancer patients who received neo-adjuvant chemotherapy regimen called FEC were selected. Fluorescent in situ hybridization assay (FISH) was taken to detect the amplification status of HER-2 gene/TOP2A gene. The efficacy of chemotherapy was evaluated according to the RECIST rule after 4 cycles, then Spearman′s rank correlation test was used to assess the relationship between the amplification status of HER-2 gene/TOP2A gene and the efficacy of chemotherapy.
Results：Amplification of HER-2, TOP2A and co-amplification of them was detected in 19 patients（19/58,32.8%）,11 patients（11/58,19.0%）, and 11 patients (11/58,19.0%）respectively. The amplification of HER2, TOP2A and co-amplification of them all had closely correlation with the efficacy, the Spearman′s rank correlation coefficient was 0.52, 0.53 and 0.56 (P＜0.05) respectively.
Conclusions：Both HER-2 and TOP2A gene amplification can predict the response to chemotherapy based on anthracyclines independently in breast cancer. However, co-amplification of HER-2 and TOP2A may predict the efficacy of treatment based on anthracyclines more accurately.