Tumor angiogenesis predicts clinical outcome of node-positive breast cancer patients treated with adjuvant hormone therapy or chemotherapy

Experimental studies suggest that angiogenesis is necessary for breast cancer progression and metastasis and that it may play a role in responsiveness to some chemotherapeutic agents and to tamoxifen. To investigate whether angiogenesis predicts the clinical outcome of patients with node-positive breast cancer, we determined intratumoral microvessel density in a series of patients treated with either adjuvant hormone therapy (n=84) or chemotherapy (n= 107).