When systemically untreated breast cancer patients were dichotomized according to p-AKT(Ser473), p-AKT(Thr308), p-mTOR or p-p70S6K status, the group that was positive for the marker (dichotomized according to Akaike’s information criteria) exhibited a decreased risk for recurrence compared with patients whose tumor had no or low expression of the marker (Figure 2 and Table 3; Tables S17,S18,S19,S20 in Additional file 1). Here, MTOR is linked to neoplasm.