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CME Accreditation and Credit Designation

Physicians:
Physicians' Education Resource is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Physicians' Education Resource designates this educational activity for a maximum of 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Physician Assistants:
AAPA accepts category 1 credit from AOACCME, Prescribed credit from AAFP, and AMA Category 1 CME credit for the PRA from organizations accredited by the ACCME.

New Frontiers in Individualized Breast Cancer Therapy

Grand Hyatt San Antonio
San Antonio, TX
Dec 13, 2008

Conference Overview

Conference Description & Purpose

The New Frontiers in Individualized Breast Cancer Therapy symposium is designed to update physicians on the latest information regarding the development of molecular diagnostic assays for breast cancer and how to integrate this information into their everyday practices. The technology behind multigene expression profiling assays will be discussed, including immunohistochemistry, RT-PCR, and DNA microarray-based assays. The use of microarray technology in breast cancer subtyping will also be covered as well as key clinical data from prospective validation studies establishing these assays as prognostic and/or predictive in patients with node-negative early-stage ER+ breast cancer. Comparisons of molecular profiling assays to traditional clinicopathologic criteria and online algorithms will be reviewed, and the utility of these assays in patients with node-positive disease and ongoing clinical trials of multigene assays in breast cancer will be discussed.

Case-based panel discussions will review concepts regarding the optimization of molecular diagnostic assays in specific clinical scenarios. Concepts related to the interpretation of results from these novel assays in the context of traditional clinicopathologic criteria will also be discussed, particularly in situations in which the novel and the traditional criteria do not agree. These presentations will provide physicians with the latest information on novel molecular profiling tools and offer insight into the application of the latest data to patient treatment decisions in their clinical practices.

Target Audience

This educational program is directed toward medical, surgical, and radiation oncologists practicing in the community or at academic institutions. Fellows, nurses, physician assistants, and pharmacists with an interest in the treatment of breast cancer are also invited to attend.

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this symposium, you should be able to:

  • Describe the current scientific understanding of the molecular basis for the heterogeneous nature of breast cancer and the utility of molecular assays for distinguishing breast cancer subtypes and outcome
  • Compare and contrast different assays for multiparametric analysis of breast tumors
  • Summarize key clinical data on RT-PCR– or microarray-based assays for prognosis or prediction in hormone receptor–positive early-stage breast cancer
  • Apply results from molecular prognostic assays to specific clinical scenarios

Educational Grants

An educational grant for this activity was provided by:


  1. Agendia