title: High preoperative serum TIMP-1 is a prognostic indicator for survival in breast carcinoma.
abstract: The amount of the immunoreactive protein for the tissue inhibitor of the matrix metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) was studied prospectively from the pretreatment sera of 71 breast carcinoma patients using an enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA). The study consisted of patients with a primary breast carcinoma diagnosed between 1988 and 1991. The median follow-up time was more than 10 years, and routine adjuvant treatment was not used in the primary treatment. High TIMP-1 (> 196 ng/ml) was found to correlate with a poor relapse-free survival (RFS) in primary node-negative breast carcinoma. After 10 years of the follow-up only 42% of the patients with a high preoperative serum TIMP-1-level were free of the relapse, whereas 82% of the patients with a low serum TIMP-1 enjoyed a long RFS-time (log rank p =0.009). High serum TIMP-1 also indicated poor RFS (p = 0.02) and overall survival (p = 0.05) in stage I breast carcinoma. In Kaplan-Meier analysis the RFS was 89% in patients with a low serum level of TIMP-1 compared to 52% in patients with a high serum concentration of TIMP-1. In conclusion, preoperative high serum TIMP-1 levels predict poor outcome in primary breast carcinoma. In multivariate analysis preoperative high serum TIMP-1 increases the risk of relapse 3.4-fold during the first 10 years of follow-up in primary node-negative breast carcinoma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Oulu, University Hospital of Oulu, Finland. anne.talvensaari-mattila@oulu.fi
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Talvensaari-Mattila
authors.forename: Taina
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Turpeenniemi-Hujanen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015415:Biomarkers; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011379:Prognosis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011446:Prospective Studies; D015996:Survival Rate; D019715:Tissue Inhibitor of Metalloproteinase-1 / Q000097:blood*
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D019715:Tissue Inhibitor of Metalloproteinase-1