engleski

The change in the immunophenotype during the progression of the breast cancer

Introduction: Breast cancer represents heterogeneous disease based on morphology, prognosis and the response to the therapy. Intratumoral heterogeneity of the primary tumour is important for the development of the metastatic disease and the change in immunophenotype during disease progression highlights the importance of sampling metastatic tumour tissue for the optimal therapy strategy. The aim of this study was to determine and compare immunophenotype in primary and metastatic breast cancer. Patients and methods: In the small pilot study we reviewed pathological features and biomarker expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal receptor 2 (HER-2), Ki-67 proliferation marker (Ki-67) that were assessed for the primary tumour and the matched metastases. Results: The change in immunophenotype was observed in 11 out of 26 patients (42%), 23% of ER and PR became negative, 0.1% of HER-2 became positive. The 6 out of 8 (75%) luminal A changed to luminal B (Her-2 negative) and 1 (13%) luminal A to luminal B (Her-2 positive). Three out of four tumours in luminal B (HER-2 negative) group changed immunophenotype (1 to luminal A, 1 to luminal B (HER-2 positive and 1 to triple negative). One out of 5 triple negative breast cancers changed immunofphenotype to luminal B (HER-2 positive) in second local reccurence. Conclusion: The observation of the immunophenotype change in the present study during the cancer progression demonstrates development of the tumour mass mostly composed of different cells than the primary tumour. The therapeutic implications may derive from providing new information to the oncologist based on immunophenotype of the tumour.

Breast cancer

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