[The relationship between laminin and laminin receptor expression to metastasis and survival of breast carcinomas].

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the relationship between laminin (LN) and LN receptor (LN-R) expression to breast carcinoma metastasis and survival.

METHOD

The LSAB immunohistochemical method was used to study cytoplasm of primary breast cancer tissue from 109 cases and 37 axillary lymph nodes with metastasis.

RESULTS

Immunostaining of LN was detected in 32 (29.4%) primary breast carcinoma and in 5 (13.7%) axillary nodes with metastasis. The expression of LN-R was significantly lower in primary breast carcinomas (55.0%) than in the node-positive tissues (83.8%) (P < 0.05). Among the 64 cases followed up none of the 6 patients with LN positive alone died after 3 years. Whereas, the LN-R positive (including LN-R positive alone or both LN and LN-R positive) cases had a significantly poorer prognosis when compared with the LN-R negative cases (P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis of clinical and pathological data by Cox regression method demonstrated that both LN-R expression and lymph node status were independent factors affecting the survival of breast cancer patients, but the former had a higher risk (odds ratio = 4.375) than the latter (OR = 2.810).

CONCLUSION

These results suggest that LN-R expression is an important biofactor for predicting the prognosis of breast cancer.