Detection of gene pathways with predictive power for breast cancer prognosis

Background: Prognosis is of critical interest in breast cancer research. Biomedical studies suggest that genomic measurements may have independent predictive power for prognosis. Gene profiling studies have been conducted to search for predictive genomic measurements. Genes have the inherent pathway structure, where pathways are composed of multiple genes with coordinated functions. The goal of this study is to identify gene pathways with predictive power for breast cancer prognosis. Since our goal is fundamentally different from that of existing studies, a new pathway analysis method is proposed. Results: The new method advances beyond existing alternatives along the following aspects. First, it can assess the predictive power of gene pathways, whereas existing methods tend to focus on model fitting accuracy only. Second, it can account for the joint effects of multiple genes in a pathway, whereas existing methods tend to focus on the marginal effects of genes. Third, it can accommod...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Shuangge Ma, Michael R. Kosorok
• Keywords: BMCBI 2010, Breast Cancer, Genomic Measurements, Predictive Power