Q: Do you think improvements in tumor classification are going to prove essential to the process of breast cancer diagnosis and therapy?

DR. KING: I do think it’s important. I think that the approaches being used, from morphology to protein markers to RNA expression profiles, are all useful.

A very promising next step will be to develop treatments that work for reasons that we understand against one subset of tumors as defined either by their protein profiles, their morphology, their DNA expression profiles, or their somatic alterations—or some combinations thereof.

The tumor itself evolves over time, so when a particular therapeutic is no longer useful because there’s been a selection against that profile and a permissive selection for another profile, one can use a different therapeutic. It’s still not prevention but I think it’s a very promising next step and I think the tumor profile is a great way to go. We don’t want to profile people, but I was very happy to profile tumors.