. 2006 Oct 24;8(5):R60. doi: 10.1186/bcr1611

Table 1.

Basic characteristics of patients with primary systemic therapy

Characteristic	n	Bone marrow positive		P value

		n	%
Total	157	84	53	-
Menopausal status				0.3
Premenopausal	72	42	58
Postmenopausal	85	42	49
Tumor size				0.6
ypT0	24	10	44
ypT1	61	33	54
ypT2–ypT4	73	41	56
Nodal status				0.5
ypN negative	75	38	51
ypN positive	82	46	56
Estrogen receptor status				1.0
Negative	39	21	54
Positive	118	63	53
Progesterone receptor status				0.7
Negative	68	35	52
Positive	89	49	55
HER2 status
Negative (score 0/+1 by immunohistochemistry)	115	63	54	0.7
Positive (score +2/+3 by immunohistochemistry)	39	20	51
Grading				0.9
I–II	109	58	53
III	41	21	51
Histology				0.2
Ductal	97	48	49
Lobular	33	17	52
Others	27	19	70
Primary systemic therapy				0.3
Chemotherapy	142	78	55
Hormonal therapy	15	6	40
Response to neoadjuvant systemic therapy^a				<0.05^c
Pathological complete remission	24	10 (4)^b	42 (17)^b
Partial remission^d	87	42 (11)^b	48 (13)^b
Stable disease	40	27 (2)^b	68 (5)^b
Progressive disease	5	4 (0)^b	80 (0)^b

^aNot including apoptotic cells (see Table 2). ^bNumber (percentage) of patients with only apoptotic cells. ^cComplete remission + partial remission (46%) versus stable disease + progressive disease (69%). ^dPartial remission also includes patients with clinical complete remission but pathological partial remission.