Patients and Tumor Characteristics
| Characteristic | No. of patients (of 117 total) |
| Noninflammatory LABC* | 82 (70) |
| T1 N2 M0 | 1 (1) |
| T1 N3 M0 | 2 (2) |
| T2 N2 M0 | 11 (9) |
| T2 N3 M0 | 1 (1) |
| T3 N2 M0 | 14 (12) |
| T3 N3 M0 | 5 (4) |
| T4a/b/c N0 M0 | 13 (11) |
| T4a/b/c N1 M0 | 20 (18) |
| T4a/b/c N2 M0 | 12 (10) |
| T4a/b/c N3 M0 | 3 (3) |
| Inflammatory breast cancer* | 35 (30) |
| T4d N0 M0 | 1 (1) |
| T4d N1 M0 | 16 (14) |
| T4d N2 M0 | 12 (10) |
| T4d N3 M0 | 6 (5) |
| Tumor type | |
| Invasive ductal carcinoma | 98 (84) |
| Invasive lobular carcinoma | 12 (10) |
| Other | 7 (6) |
| Grade | |
| Grade 1 | 2 (2) |
| Grade 2 | 49 (42) |
| Grade 3 | 58 (49) |
| Unspecified | 8 (7) |
| Estrogen receptor status† | |
| Positive | 59 (50) |
| Negative | 57 (49) |
| Unspecified | 1 (1) |
| Progesterone receptor status† | |
| Positive | 28 (24) |
| Negative | 87 (75) |
| Unspecified | 1 (1) |
| HER2 status‡ | |
| Positive | 22 (19) |
| Negative | 94 (80) |
| Unspecified | 1 (1) |
↵* Clinical classification before PET/CT and conventional distant work-up.
↵† Tumors were considered positive for ER or for PR if >10% of cells showed staining by immunohistochemistry.
↵‡ Tumors were considered to overexpress c-erbB-2 oncoprotein (HER2-positive) if >30% of invasive tumor cells showed definite membrane staining resulting in so-called fishnet appearance.
Data in parentheses are percentages.