title: Elevated expression of E-cadherin in primary breast cancer and its corresponding metastatic lymph node.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study was to investigate the E-cadherin expression patterns in primary breast cancers and metastatic lymph node.
  
  
  METHODS
  Only lymph nodes which were pathologically identified as metastases were included in this study to pair up the primary tumors. E-cadherin RNA expression levels in invasive ductal breast cancer subjects were detected. E-cadherin gene copies were normalized using beta-actin gene copies. ER, PR, cerbB2 expressions in the primary tumor were routinely examined by immunohistochemistry method. Tumor characteristics and number of metastatic lymph nodes were gathered from the pathology reports.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We tried to explore the relationship between E-cadherin expression in 21 primary tumors and their corresponding metastatic lymph nodes. However, the Q-RT-PCR data show that an aberrant expression existed in both primary tumors and the corresponding lymph nodes (P=0.115), in which metastatic lymph nodes showed slight higher gene copies compared with primary sites (77.77±94.74 vs 43.35±40.03, respectively). It is noteworthy that nodal E-cadherin expression was closely but negatively correlated with tumor size (P<0.01, r=-0.775) and number of metastasized lymph nodes (P<0.05, r=-0.519), as tumor size and number of metastasized lymph nodes were already clinically proven to be important prognostic factors. There was no correlation between ER, PR, cerbB2 status in primary tumors and the nodal E-cadherin expression (P>0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It is indicated that E-cadherin expression is aberrant in invasive ductal cancers and their corresponding metastatic lymph nodes. E-cadherin expression in the metastasized lymph node is closely related to tumor size and number of metastasized lymph nodes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Endocrinology, First People's Hospital of Jiaotong University Shanghai 200080, China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Tenth People's Hospital of Shanghai Tongji University Shanghai 200072, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jian
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Tenth People's Hospital of Shanghai Tongji University Shanghai 200072, China.
authors.forename: Leisheng
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Tenth People's Hospital of Shanghai Tongji University Shanghai 200072, China.
authors.forename: Lijun
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Tenth People's Hospital of Shanghai Tongji University Shanghai 200072, China.
authors.forename: Zhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Tenth People's Hospital of Shanghai Tongji University Shanghai 200072, China.
authors.forename: Donglei
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhou
keywords: E-cadherin; metastatic lymph node; primary breast cancer; real-time PCR