Patent ID: 8105768

Claim:
A method for identifying a candidate patient for treatment with trastuzumab, the method comprising: (a) obtaining a biological sample comprising at least one breast cancer cell from the patient; (b) contacting the biological sample with a set of two or more chromosomal probes under conditions sufficient to enable hybridization of the probes to chromosomes in the sample, if any, wherein the probes are able to detect at least the copy numbers for HER-2/neu and the locus TOP2A in the at least one breast cancer cell and contacting the biological sample with one or more corresponding chromosome enumeration probes under conditions sufficient to enable hybridization of the one or more chromosome enumeration probes to chromosomes in the sample, if any; and c) identifying the candidate as being suitable for treatment with trastuzumab based on detecting an increase in copy number for HER-2 /neu but no increase in copy number for TOP2A in the sample relative to the one or more chromosome enumeration probes and identifying the candidate as being unsuitable for treatment with trastuzumab based on detecting an increase in copy number for HER-2/neu and an increase in copy number for TOP2A in the sample relative to the one or more chromosome enumeration probes.