title: Prognostic significance of Helix pomatia lectin and c-erbB-2 oncoprotein in human breast cancer.
abstract: We investigated the prognostic significance of Helix pomatia lectin (HPA) staining on disease-free and overall survival in 120 primary breast carcinomas. HPA staining was present in 58 (48%) of these carcinomas. It was significantly associated with axillary lymph node metastases (P < 0.001) and c-erbB-2 expression (P < 0.01). A univariate study revealed that disease-free and overall survival were significantly correlated with clinical stage, tumour size, axillary lymph node metastases. HPA staining and c-erbB-2 expression. In a multivariate study, all previous prognostic indicators except HPA staining and c-erbB-2 expression were independent factors. However, stratifying the patients on the basis of HPA and c-erbB-2 status suggested that HPA +/c-erbB-2+ status was predictive of a higher incidence of axillary lymph node metastases (P = 0.000001) and a poorer overall (P < 0.0002) and a shorter disease-free (P < 0.000006) survival when compared with the other subgroups, although this combination did not provide any additional prognostic information for overall (P = 0.3544) or disease-free (P = 0.7152) survival by a multivariate analysis. For patients in whom axillary lymph node dissection has not been performed, therefore, HPA and c-erbB-2 status seems to be a powerful tool to discriminate subpopulations with a high recurrence risk and shorter survival who should undergo more aggressive therapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery (II) Kanazawa University Hospital, Japan.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Noguchi
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fonseca
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kitagawa
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kinoshita
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Miyazaki
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry*; D005260:Female; D006372:Helix, Snails; D006388:Hemagglutinins; D006801:Humans; D037102:Lectins; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009856:Oncogene Proteins, Viral / Q000235:genetics*; D011379:Prognosis; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases
chemical_list: D006388:Hemagglutinins; D037102:Lectins; D009856:Oncogene Proteins, Viral; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; C038095:Helix lectin