Patent ID: 7985561

Claim:
A method of identifying a subject that is at increased risk for a poor prognosis for chemotherapeutic drug cancer therapy for a cancer selected from the group consisting of breast cancer, prostate cancer, and bladder cancer, wherein the chemotherapeutic drug is selected from the group consisting of an anthracycline, cyclophosphamide, and 5-fluorouracil, the method comprising the steps of: (a) analyzing a sample from the subject with an assay that distinguishes between valine and alanine at amino acid position 16 of manganese superoxide dismutase or that distinguishes between the codon encoding valine and the codon encoding alanine at amino acid position 16 of manganese superoxide dismutase; and (b) determining the presence of at least one Ala allele in the subject's genotype for the codon encoding amino acid position 16 of manganese superoxide dismutase, thereby identifying that the subject is at increased risk for poor prognosis for chemotherapeutic drug cancer therapy compared to a subject that has a genotype having two Val alleles at the codon encoding amino acid position 16 of manganese superoxide dismutase.