ArticleBreast cancer research and treatment2025
IHC4 and COMBINE scores for enhanced prognostic stratification in HR+/HER2- breast cancer patients after neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
Article in Breast cancer research and treatment, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Early identification of neoadjuvant therapy non-response via multimodal immune-imaging biomarkers in breast cancer.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe prognostic value of pathological complete response (pCR) in HR+/HER2- breast cancer patients following neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is limited, as many of these patients achieve long-term survival regardless of pCR status. The effectiveness of current tools-residual cancer burden (RCB), the Miller-Payne (MP) score, CPS-EG score and the immunohistochemical 4 (IHC4)-in this subgroup remains uncertain. In this study, we validated the prognostic role of these approaches and developed a COMBINED score capable of more accurately stratifying patients into distinct risk groups, effectively identifying low-risk patients with favorable outcomes who may be suitable for treatment de-escalation.
methodsThis study retrospectively analyzed 601 HR+/HER2- breast cancer patients at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital who did not achieve pCR following NAC. Patients were stratified using the IHC4, RCB, MP, CPS-EG, and a novel COMBINE score (integrating CPS-EG and IHC4). Survival outcomes, including disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS), were evaluated using Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression, with time-dependent ROC and concordance index (C-index) calculations to assess prognostic performance.
resultsThe IHC4 and CPS-EG scores outperformed the RCB and MP scores in predicting DFS and OS for non-pCR HR+/HER2- patients. The COMBINE score further enhanced prognostic accuracy, stratifying patients into four risk groups with significant differences in 5-year DFS (96.5% for low-risk vs. 55.1% for high-risk) and OS (100% for low-risk vs. 63.4% for high-risk). The COMBINE score consistently demonstrated superior AUC and C-index values compared to the CPS-EG and IHC4 scores individually at all time points (all p-values < 0.05).
conclusionThe IHC4 score adds prognostic value beyond the CPS-EG score in HR+/HER2- breast cancer patients post-NAC. The COMBINE score, integrating both systems, offers superior prognostic stratification, highlighting the importance of combining clinical staging with tumor biology. Future studies with independent datasets are needed to validate these findings. This study provides valuable insights for optimizing treatment decisions in HR+/HER2- breast cancer.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.