Correlation between miRNA and gene expression profiles and response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced and inflammatory breast cancer.

548 Background: Gene expression profiling may predict for pathologic complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant therapy (NT). Identification of both miRNA and gene expression may yield novel targets and improved NT. Methods: Patients (pts) with HER2− locally advanced/inflammatory breast cancer (BC) were randomized to receive docetaxel, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide (TAC, arm A), or A and C given every 2 weeks × 4, followed by carboplatin and nab-paclitaxel (arm B). Pts with HER2+ BC received NT similar to arm B, with trastuzumab (arm C). Core biopsies were snap-frozen prior to NT, and RNA was extracted for gene array analysis (MammaPrint, BluePrint: basal, luminal, and HER2 profiling, and Agilent 44K microarray), and for deep sequence miRNA analysis with the Solexa/Illumina platform. Pathological assessment included grade, ER, HER2 expression, and evidence of residual BC vs.pCR. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering analysis and Fisher’s exact tests were utilized to assess for correlation between miRNA and ...