Figure 2 shows the promoter methylation in sporadic breast cancer patients. Methylation was positive in 82.6% (n=19/23) of the sporadic cancer samples that had loss of BRCA1 expression and 50% (n=2/4) of the samples with equivocal protein expression. Methylation was negative in all the sporadic breast cancer samples (n=3/3) with retained protein expression. Consistent with the BRCA1 promoter methylation, the protein expression levels of BRCA1 were reduced in sporadic breast tumors with methylated genes. This evidence concerns the gene BRCA1 and breast neoplasm.