title: Overall survival and clinicopathological characteristics of patients with breast cancer in relation to the expression pattern of HER-2, IL-6, TNF-α and TGF-β1.
abstract: The present study was conducted to investigate the prognostic significance of co-expression patterna of HER-2, IL-6, TNF-a and TGF-β1 in breast cancer, by correlating the number of markers with positive expression with clinicopathological characteristics indicative of tumor progression and overall survival. One hundred thirty consecutive patients with primary breast cancer were prospectively included and evaluated. Serum concentrations of the above markers were measured by ELISA. Median split was used to subdivide patients with marker positive or negative expression. The presence of ≥ 3 positive markers was independently associated with extended lymph node (>3) involvement (aOR, 11.94, p=0.001) and lymphovascular invasion (aOR, 12.04, p=0.018), increasing the prognostic significance of each marker considered separately. Additional prognostic information regarding survival was also provided; as the number of positive markers increased, a gradually reduction of survival time was observed. In addition, patients with 4 positive markers had significantly shorter survival (25 vs 39 months, p=0.006) and a more than 4 fold increased risk of death (aHR, 4.35, p=0.003) compared to patients with 3 positive markers. Our findings suggest that the coexpression pattern of these four markers could be used clinically as a useful marker for tumor extension and outcome of breast cancer.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Medical Statistics, Medical School, Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Greece E-mail : gtryps@med.duth.gr.
authors.forename: Gregory
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tripsianis
authors.forename: Evropi
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Papadopoulou
authors.forename: Konstantinos
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Romanidis
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Katotomichelakis
authors.forename: Kostas
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Anagnostopoulos
authors.forename: Emmanuel
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kontomanolis
authors.forename: Sotirios
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Botaitis
authors.forename: Ioannis
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tentes
authors.forename: Alexandros
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kortsaris
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000097:blood / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology; D018270:Carcinoma, Ductal, Breast / Q000097:blood / Q000401:mortality / Q000556:secondary; D018275:Carcinoma, Lobular / Q000097:blood / Q000401:mortality / Q000556:secondary; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D015850:Interleukin-6 / Q000097:blood*; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008875:Middle Aged; D060787:Neoplasm Grading; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000097:blood*; D015996:Survival Rate; D053773:Transforming Growth Factor beta1 / Q000097:blood*; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000097:blood*
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D015850:Interleukin-6; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D053773:Transforming Growth Factor beta1; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha; C508053:ERBB2 protein, human