PURPOSE To update key recommendations of the American Society of Clinical Oncology/College of American Pathologists estrogen (ER) and progesterone receptor (PgR) testing in breast cancer guideline. METHODS A multidisciplinary international Expert Panel was convened to update the clinical practice guideline recommendations informed by a systematic review of the medical literature. RECOMMENDATIONS The Expert Panel continues to recommend ER testing of invasive breast cancers by validated immunohistochemistry as the standard for predicting which patients may benefit from endocrine therapy, and no other assays are recommended for this purpose. Breast cancer samples with 1% to 100% of tumor nuclei positive should be interpreted as ER positive. However, the Expert Panel acknowledges that there are limited data on endocrine therapy benefit for cancers with 1% to 10% of cells staining ER positive. Samples with these results should be reported using a new reporting category, ER Low Positive, with a recommended comment. A sample is considered ER negative if < 1% or 0% of tumor cell nuclei are immunoreactive. Additional strategies recommended to promote optimal performance, interpretation, and reporting of cases with an initial low to no ER staining result include establishing a laboratory-specific standard operating procedure describing additional steps used by the laboratory to confirm/adjudicate results. The status of controls should be reported for cases with 0% to 10% staining. Similar principles apply to PgR testing, which is used primarily for prognostic purposes in the setting of an ER-positive cancer. Testing of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) for ER is recommended to determine potential benefit of endocrine therapies to reduce risk of future breast cancer, while testing DCIS for PgR is considered optional. Additional information can be found at www.asco.org/breast-cancer-guidelines .

Marking nodes with biopsy-confirmed metastatic disease allows for selective removal and improves pathologic evaluation for residual nodal disease after chemotherapy.

A B S T R A C T PurposeTo examine the association between beta-blocker (BB) intake, pathologic complete response (pCR) rates, and survival outcomes in patients with breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Patients and MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed 1,413 patients with breast cancer who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy between 1995 and 2007. Patients taking BBs at the start of neoadjuvant therapy were compared with patients with no BB intake. Rates of pCR between the groups were compared using a 2 test. Cox proportional hazards models were fitted to determine the association between BB intake, relapse-free survival (RFS), and overall survival (OS). ResultsPatients who used BBs (n ϭ 102) were compared with patients (n ϭ 1,311) who did not. Patients receiving BBs tended to be older and obese (P Ͻ .001). The proportion of pCR was not significantly different between the groups (P ϭ .48). After adjustment for age, race, stage, grade, receptor status, lymphovascular invasion, body mass index, diabetes, hypertension, and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor use, BB intake was associated with a significantly better RFS (hazard ratio [HR], 0.52; 95% CI, 0.31 to 0.88) but not OS (P ϭ .09). Among patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC; n ϭ 377), BB intake was associated with improved RFS (HR, 0.30; 95% CI, 0.10 to 0.87; P ϭ .027) but not OS (HR, 0.35; 95% CI, 0.12 to 1.00; P ϭ .05). ConclusionIn this study, BB intake was associated with improved RFS in all patients with breast cancer and in patients with TNBC. Additional studies evaluating the potential benefits of beta-adrenergic blockade on breast cancer recurrence with a focus on TNBC are warranted.

The use of no ink on tumor as the standard for an adequate margin in invasive cancer in the era of multidisciplinary therapy is associated with low rates of IBTR and has the potential to decrease re-excision rates, improve cosmetic outcomes, and decrease health care costs. J Clin Oncol 32. 2014 American Society of Clinical Oncology®, American Society for Radiation Oncology®, and Society of Surgical Oncology®. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Society for Radiation Oncology, and Society of Surgical Oncology.