Guangxu Liu, Shengnan Ren, Yuxiang Yan, Jie Zhang, Yanxia Luo, Fen Liu, Xiaoxia Peng, Ling Zhang, Xu Han, Yuncui Yu, Rong Zhu, Ruiying Kang, Jie Li, Xuedong Fang and Yan He
Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the clinicopathological characteristics and the expression of tumor biomarkers among luminal breast cancer (LBC), HER2-enriched breast cancer (HEBC), and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) in Chinese women.
Methods: According to the result of IHC staining detection, 683 breast cancer patients undergoing surgery from January 2009 to December 2010 were classified into three subtypes: LBC (ER+ and/or PR+, HER2-), HEBC (ER-, PR-, HER2+) and TNBC (ER-, PR-, HER2-).
Results: Significant difference in tumor grade, tumor size and TNM stage was observed both in HEBC (P<0.0001, P=0.001 and P<0.0001, respectively) and TNBC (P<0.0001, P<0.0001 and P=0.009, respectively) when compared with LBC. The rate of lymph node metastasis in LBC was 14.4% and 18.1% lower respectively than that in HEBC (P=0.001) and TNBC (P=0.001). The Ki-67 expression in LBC was 17.1% and 13.9% lower respectively than that in HEBC (P<0.001) and TNBC (P=0.016). Furthermore, the tumor grade II/III in TNBC was significantly higher than that in HEBC (P<0.001), and the expression of p53 and EGFR in TNBC was 15.0% and 29.9% higher than that in HEBC (P=0.002, P=0.011). Additionally, the higher tumor grade was a risk factor for the expression of p53 and EGFR in TNBC.
Conclusions: The distinct intrinsic BC subtypes exhibited the heterogeneity in clinicopathological characteristics and biomarkers expression. The individualized therapy of breast cancer should be more emphasized on the strategy of treatment.