Department of Clinical Pathology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
Department of Plastic Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
Ann Med. 2022 Dec;54(1):1303-1312. doi: 10.1080/07853890.2022.2070272.
Breast cancer (BC) is a group of markedly heterogeneous tumours. There are many subtypes with different biological behaviours and clinicopathological characteristics, leading to significantly different prognosis. Despite significant advances in the treatment of BC, early metastatic is a critical factor for poor prognosis in BC patients. Tumour budding (TB) is considered as the first step process of tumour metastasis and is related to the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). TB has been observed in a variety of cancers, such as colorectal and gastric cancer, and had been considered as a distinct clinicopathological characteristics for early metastasis. However, TB evaluation standards and clinical application are not uniform in BC, as well as its molecular mechanism is not fully understood. Here, we reviewed the interpretation criteria, mechanism, clinicopathological characteristics and clinical application prospects of TB in BC. Key messagesCurrently, tumour budding is a poor prognosis for various solid tumours, also in breast cancer.Tumour budding is based on epithelial-mesenchymal transition and tumour microenvironment factors and is presumed to be an early step in the metastatic process.Breast cancer tumour budding still needs multi-centre experiments. We summarize the current research on breast cancer tumour budding, analyse the method of discriminating breast cancer tumour budding and explore the prognostic role and mechanism in breast cancer.
乳腺癌（BC）是一组明显异质性的肿瘤。有许多具有不同生物学行为和临床病理特征的亚型，导致预后明显不同。尽管 BC 的治疗取得了重大进展，但早期转移仍是 BC 患者预后不良的关键因素。肿瘤芽（TB）被认为是肿瘤转移的第一步过程，与上皮-间充质转化（EMT）有关。TB 已在多种癌症中观察到，如结直肠癌和胃癌，并被认为是早期转移的一个明显的临床病理特征。然而，BC 中的 TB 评估标准和临床应用并不统一，其分子机制也不完全清楚。在这里，我们回顾了 TB 在 BC 中的解释标准、机制、临床病理特征和临床应用前景。关键信息目前，肿瘤芽是各种实体瘤的不良预后指标，在乳腺癌中也是如此。肿瘤芽基于上皮-间充质转化和肿瘤微环境因素，被认为是转移过程的早期步骤。乳腺癌肿瘤芽仍需要多中心实验。我们总结了目前对乳腺癌肿瘤芽的研究，分析了乳腺癌肿瘤芽的鉴别方法，并探讨了其在乳腺癌中的预后作用和机制。
