Abstract:

Objective

To investigate the expression of cancer stem cell marker CD133 in breast invasive ductal carcinoma and its relationship with the clinicopathological parameters.

Methods

Totally 102 cases of invasive ductal carcinoma in the Tumour Hospital of Chengde City and Department of Oncology, the Affiliated Hospital of Chengde Medical College from January 2001 to December 2005 were involved, and CD133 protein expressions in their carcinoma tissues were detected by immunohistochemistry. χ² test or Fisher probabilities test was used to analyze the relationship of CD133 expression and clinicopathological parameters.

Results

CD133 was expressed to different extents in the breast invasive ductal carcinoma tissues. The positive expression rate of CD133 showed statistical significant difference between groups with different tumor sizes(χ²=7.476,P=0.024),and the positive expression rate of CD133 in the patients with tumor diameter of ＞2-5 cm was significantly higher than that in the patients with tumor diameter≤2 cm [56.72%(38/67)vs 26.09%(6/23),χ²=6.429,P＜0.012]. There were some statistical differences between groups at different histological grades(χ²=6.274,P=0.043).The positive expression rates of CD133 in patients with lymph node metastasis were significantly higher than those without [64.71%(22/34) vs 39.71%(27/68),χ²=5.675,P=0.017].There was no significant difference in the expression of CD133 between groups with different age and dinical stage(χ²=0.177,P=0.674;χ²=2.874,P=0.242).

Conclusion

CD133 can be used as an important marker of invasion and metastasis in breast invasive ductal carcinoma.

Key words: Neoplastic stem cells, Antigens,CD, Carcinoma,ductal,breast, Immunohistochemistry