We assayed for P-Akt in total breast tumour lysates, and not in tissue samples obtained from microdissection, both because we wished to correlate the protein expression levels of ErbB-2 and P-Akt levels directly in cells extracted from human tumour samples, and because it has been demonstrated that the activation status of Akt varies considerably in tumours of the same histotype, but not between different histotypes of the same tumour [31]. This evidence concerns the gene ERBB2 and breast neoplasm.