National Cancer Institute U.S. National Institutes of Health www.cancer.gov
Cancer Diagnosis Program (CDP)
CDP Tissue Microarrays

CDP Breast Cancer Progression Tissue Microarray (TMA)

The NCI Cancer Diagnosis Program (CDP) has developed a breast cancer progression tissue microarray that is designed to investigate differences in prevalence of markers in three stages of invasive breast cancer: node-negative, node-positive and metastatic disease. All of the invasive cases are primary breast cancers with a principal histology of ductal cancer. The CDP breast cancer progression TMA was designed by a National Cancer Institute biostatistician to ensure high statistical power for studies of stage specific markers of breast cancer.

The CDP assembled a collection of 679 breast tissue specimens divided into six non-overlapping case sets. Each case set is arrayed in quadruplicate to address possible tissue heterogeneity: four cores are taken from each breast tissue specimen, with one core per specimen appearing in each of the four replicate tissue microarray blocks. At this time sections from three of the case sets are now available. A complete array set, representing the minimum number of cores recommended for an experiment, includes sections from all three case sets. For additional details about the design of the CDP breast cancer progression TMA, see Case Sets 3-8.

The number of cores varies among the case sets. Each TMA block consists of between 130-133 cores taken from paraffin-embedded specimens, including 112-115 breast cancer and normal breast specimens plus 18 control cores. DCIS and normal breast tissue cores are 1.5 mm, and the remaining tissue microarray cores are 0.6 mm in diameter.

The 112-115 normal breast and breast cancer cores appearing on each section taken from a TMA block include:

  1. NODE-NEGATIVE BREAST CANCER: 26-28 cores.
  2. NODE-POSITIVE BREAST CANCER: 26-27 cores.
  3. METASTATIC BREAST CANCER: 26-27 cores (primary tumors from patients who had metastatic lesions at diagnosis).
  4. DUCTAL CARCINOMA IN SITU (DCIS): 8-11 cores (5 from individuals without an invasive disease component and 3-6 from individuals with invasive disease represented elsewhere on the TMA).
  5. NORMAL BREAST TISSUE: 23 cores (14 from individuals without breast cancer and 9 from individuals with breast cancer represented elsewhere on the TMA).

The 18 control cores appearing on each section taken from a TMA block include:

  1. NORMAL NON-BREAST TISSUE: 8 cores (2 cores from each of the following tissue types: kidney, endometrium, prostate and colon).
  2. CELL LINES: 10 cores (2 cores from each of the following cell lines: HT-29, PC-3, MCF-7, T-47D and MCF-10A). These cell lines have previously been characterized with regard to expression of a variety of markers of interest in breast cancer.

Data that are provided for each case include tumor size, TNM stage, number of nodes positive, tumor grade, ER and PR receptor status, age at diagnosis and race. (Data Manual)

NOTE: The CDP breast progression TMA is not designed to have good power to examine associations with survival. Survival data are not provided / available for the cases on this TMA.

It is recommended by the NCI Cancer Diagnosis Program that each assay should be performed using a minimum of three case sets, with a minimum of two replicate sections per case set, for a total of six tissue microarray sections.

To apply for breast TMAs from the Cancer Diagnosis Program, please complete an application.