Potential protein markers for breast cancer recurrence: a retrospective cohort study

摘要

BackgroundWe evaluated five key proteins involved in various cancer-related pathways and assessed their relation to breast cancer recurrence.MethodsWe used the Kentucky Cancer Registry to retrospectively identify primary invasive breast cancer cases (n=475) that were diagnosed and treated at University of Kentucky Medical Center between 2000 and 2007. Breast cancer recurrence was observed in 62 cases during the 5-year follow-up after diagnosis. Protein expression or activity level was analyzed from surgery tissue using immuno-histochemical assays.ResultsCompared to ER+/PR+/HER2- patients without recurrence, those with recurrence had higher TWIST expression (p=0.049) but lower ABL1/ABL2 activity (p=0.003) in primary tumors. We also found that triple-negative breast cancer patients with recurrence had higher SNAI1 expression compared to those without recurrence (p=0.03). After adjusting for potential confounders, the higher ABL1/ABL2 activity in primary tumors was associated with a decreased risk of recurrence (OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.85-0.90) among ER+/PR+/HER2-patients. In addition, among patients with recurrence we observed that the activity level of ABL1/ABL2 was significantly increased in recurrent tumors compared to the matched primary tumors regardless of the subtype (p=0.013).ConclusionsThese findings provide evidence that the expression/activity level of various proteins may be differentially associated with risk of recurrence of breast tumor subtypes.