Association Between the Degree of Fibrosis in Fibrotic Focus and the Unfavorable Clinicopathological Prognostic Features of Breast Cancer

Overview

Journal PeerJ

Specialties Biology
Environmental Health
General Medicine

Date 2019 Nov 20

PMID 31741805

Citations 8

Authors

Yongfu Li

Yuhan Wei

Wenjun Tang

Jingru Luo

Minghua Wang

Haifeng Lin

Hong Guo

Yuling Ma

Jun Zhang

Qin Li

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objective: To explore the association between the degree of fibrosis in fibrotic focus (FF) and the unfavorable clinicopathological prognostic features of breast cancer.

Methods: A total of 169 cases of breast invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) were included in the study. Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining was performed in the primary lesion of breast IDC and the degree of fibrosis in tumor-stromal FF was assessed. The association between the degree of fibrosis in FF and the well-known clinicopathologic features of breast cancer was investigated and the influence of the degree of fibrosis in FF on the survival was analyzed.

Results: Tumor size >2 cm ( = 0.023), vascular invasion ( = 0.011), lymphatic vessel invasion ( < 0.001) and HER-2+ ( = 0.032) were positively correlated with the degree of fibrosis in FF in breast IDC. The result of multivariate analysis showed that lymphatic vessel invasion was the only independent correlation factor of high fibrosis in FF in breast IDC (OR = 3.82, 95% CI[1.13 ∼ 12.82], = 0.031). The Nottingham prognostic index (NPI) of high fibrosis in FF was significantly higher than that of mild and moderate fibrosis in FF in the no vascular infiltration subgroup, the no nerve infiltration subgroup, and the Luminal A subgroup (P = 0.014, 0.039, and 0.018; respectively).

Conclusions: The high fibrosis in FF is closely associated with the strong invasiveness and the high malignancy of breast IDC. The degree of fibrosis in FF might be considered as a very practical and meaningful pathological feature of breast cancer.

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