Patent ID: 7579158

Claim:
A method for diagnosing breast cancer comprising the steps of: (a) generating a cut-off value of cellular retinoic acid-binding protein II (CRABP-II) diagnostic of breast cancer by (i) quantifying an amount of CRAPB-II in a cohort of breast cancer negative individuals and an amount of CRABP-II in a cohort of breast cancer positive individuals to yield CRABP-II data; (ii) applying receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis to the CRABP-II data; and (iii) determining the cut-off value as an amount of CRABP-II at a percentile greater than or equal to the 95 th percentile of the cohort of breast cancer negative individuals; (b) providing a serum sample obtained from an individual; (c) quantifying an amount of CRABP-II in the serum sample; (d) comparing the amount of CRABP-II in the serum sample to the cut-off value; and (e) diagnosing breast cancer in the individual when the amount of CRABP-II in the serum sample is greater than the cut-off value.