Shaul Nathan C, Troester Melissa A, Hamilton Alina M, Lee Sheila S, Henderson Louise M, Nyante Sarah J
Department of Radiology, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 Aug 6;15(1):28710. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-09972-2.
Mammography is important for breast cancer detection, and calcifications and masses are the most common mammographic features. In this exploratory study, we evaluated the association between these findings and immune gene expression to determine the role that inflammation may play in mass- or calcification-associated breast cancers. This study included 205 breast cancer patients in the Carolina Breast Cancer Study and the Carolina Mammography Registry. Hierarchical clustering and logistic regression were used to examine associations between radiologist-reported imaging features and tumor RNA expression of 48 immune-related genes. The Bonferroni correction adjusted for multiple comparisons. There were statistically significant associations between CCL7 and calcifications (odd ratio [OR] = 0.52, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.35, 0.75) and between CCL7 and the presence of a mass (OR = 1.48 95% CI = 1.18, 1.88). Furthermore, lower expression of genes with anti-inflammatory function was associated with calcifications (p = 0.04), but not masses. However, neither mammographic masses nor calcifications were associated with global gene expression patterns using hierarchical clustering. This analysis of bulk immune markers suggests plausible associations between immune alterations and mammographic findings. Larger studies and immunoprofiling approaches sensitive to subtle variation should be conducted to identify targetable imaging characteristics, which alongside immunotherapeutic advances, may facilitate targeted breast cancer treatment.
乳腺钼靶摄影对乳腺癌检测很重要，钙化和肿块是最常见的钼靶特征。在这项探索性研究中，我们评估了这些发现与免疫基因表达之间的关联，以确定炎症在与肿块或钙化相关的乳腺癌中可能发挥的作用。本研究纳入了卡罗来纳乳腺癌研究和卡罗来纳乳腺钼靶摄影登记处的205名乳腺癌患者。采用层次聚类和逻辑回归分析来检验放射科医生报告的影像特征与48个免疫相关基因的肿瘤RNA表达之间的关联。采用Bonferroni校正法对多重比较进行调整。CCL7与钙化之间（比值比[OR]=0.52，95%置信区间[CI]=0.35，0.75）以及CCL7与肿块存在之间（OR=1.48，95%CI=1.18，1.88）存在统计学显著关联。此外，具有抗炎功能的基因低表达与钙化相关（p=0.04），但与肿块无关。然而，使用层次聚类分析，钼靶肿块和钙化均与整体基因表达模式无关。对大量免疫标志物的这项分析表明免疫改变与钼靶检查结果之间存在合理的关联。应开展更大规模的研究以及对细微变化敏感的免疫分析方法来识别可靶向的影像特征，这与免疫治疗进展一起，可能有助于乳腺癌的靶向治疗。
