Together these data suggest that lymph node metastasis and poor survival in invasive ductal breast carcinoma are linked to an uncoupled of the Akt-FOXO3a signaling axis, as in these breast cancers active Akt fails to inactivate and re-localize FOXO3a to the cytoplasm and that nuclear-targeted FOXO3a does not induce cell death or cell cycle arrest. This evidence concerns the gene FOXO3 and invasive ductal breast carcinoma.