Abstract:

Objective

To investigate the positive rate, intracellular localization and immunofluorescent characteristics of serum antinuclear antibodies in breast cancer patients, and to explore the possibility of antinuclear antibody as tumor markers.

Methods

From November 2008 to December 2009, preoperative blood samples were collected from 97 breast cancer women, including 53 patients with axillary lymph node metastasis and 44 with no metastasis, and 52 women with benign breast tumor, and 56 healthy women served as control.Indirect immunofluorescence was used to detect the antinuclear antibodies in serum.The data were analyzed by chi-square test.If P ＞0.05, pairwise comparison was conducted.

Results

The positive rate of antinuclear antibody was 16.1% (9/56) in the control group,21.2% (11/52) in benign tumor group,45.4% (20/40)in non-metastatic breast cancer group, 43.4% (23/53 ) in metastatic breast cancer group.The difference among the 4 groups was statistically significant (χ² =16.369, P=0.001).Pairwise comparison showed the positive rate of antinuclear antibody in non-metastatic breast cancer group and metastatic breast cancer group was higher than that in control group (χ²=10.332,P=0.001;χ²=9.803,P=0.002).Among control group,benign tumor and breast cancer group, statistically significant difference was found in the positive rates of antinuclear antibodies (χ²=16.321, P=0.000)and anti-nucleoplasmic antibodies (χ²=7.902, P=0.019),but not in the positive rate of anti-cytoplasmic antibodies (χ²=5.995, P=0.050).Comparing breast cancer group and the control group, statistically significant difference was found in antinuclear antibodies and antinucleoplasmic antibodies(χ² =12.636,5.972,P=0.000,0.015), but not in anti-cytoplasmic antibodies (χ² =4.473, P=0.034 ).Comparing breast cancer group and the benign tumor group, statistically significant difference was found in antinuclear antibodies (χ²=7.869,P=0.005),but not in anti-nucleoplasmic and anticytoplasmic antibodies (χ² = 3.829, 2.514, P = 0.051, 0.113).There was no statistically significant difference in the antinuclear, anti-nucleoplasmic, anti-cytoplasmic antibodies between non-metastatic breast cancer and metastatic breast cancer patients (χ² =0.041, 1.607, 1.861, P ＞0.050).Anti-nucleoplasmic antibodies showed no statistical difference among the four groups (χ²=9.900, P=0.019).

Conclusion

The serum anti-nuclear antibodies in breast cancer patients are substantially different from those in the healthy population, which provides a better understanding of autoimmunity of breast cancer patients for clinical diagnosis.

Key words: Breast neoplasms, Antinuclear antibodies, Indirect immunofluorescence