Breast Cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease that exhibits a wide variety of clinical presentations, histologic types, and growth rates. Because of these variations, determining prognosis for an individual patient at the time of initial diagnosis requires careful assessment of multiple clinical and pathological parameters. This evaluation includes consideration of an expanding list of tumor‐ and patient‐related prognostic factors, which are especially important for decisions related to systemic treatment and predictions for overall survival.