Methods and systems for prognosis and treatment of solid tumors

A system comprising:

• a first storage medium including data that represent an expression profile of one or more genes in a peripheral blood sample of a patient who has a solid tumor;
• a second storage medium including data that represent at least one reference expression profile of said one or more genes;
• a program capable of comparing the expression profile to said at least one reference expression profile;
• and
• a processor capable of executing the program, wherein said one or more genes comprise a gene selected from Tables 2 or 3, and said gene is not PRKCD, MD-2, or VNN2.

A method for prognosis of solid tumors, said method comprising comparing an expression profile of one or more genes in a peripheral blood sample of a patient of interest to at least one reference expression profile of said one or more genes,

• wherein the patient of interest has a solid tumor, and each of said one or more genes is differentially expressed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of a first class of patients relative to PBMCs of a second class of patients,
• wherein both the first and second classes of patients have the solid tumor, and the first class of patients has a first clinical outcome and the second class of patients has a second clinical outcome,
• wherein said one or more genes comprise a gene whose HG-U133A-determined PBMC expression profile in the first class and the second class of patients is correlated with a class distinction under a class-based correlation metric, said class distinction representing an idealized expression pattern of said gene in PBMCs of the first and second classes of patients, and
• wherein the difference or similarity between said express profile of the patient of interest and said at least one reference expression profile is indicative of prognosis of the solid tumor in the patient of interest.