Mammaglobin expression in tissue as a predictor of breast carcinoma aggressiveness

Abstract

Background/Aim. Human mammaglobin is considered to be one of the most significant markers of hematogenous dissemi-nation of breast carcinoma. This paper aimed to indicate the important role of peritumoral tissue as an active participant in the tumorigenesis process and the concentration/expression of mammaglobins in the peritumoral tissue as a significant prog-nostic factor. Methods. This research included 64 female pa-tients with primary breast carcinoma during the five-year fol-low-up period. To determine the concentration of mammaglo-bin A in samples of carcinoma tissue and peritumoral tissue, Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test was used, and for the determination of relative gene expression of mammaglobin A, quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used. Results. The concentra-tion of mammaglobin A was increased in both the carcinoma tissue and peritumoral tissue with an increase in tumor size, number of affected lymph nodes, number of metastases, while relative expression of mammaglobin A was statistically signifi-cantly higher in carcinoma tissue than in peritumoral tissue, re-gardless of the tumor size, number of affected lymph nodes, number of metastases and tumor type. The concentration of mammaglobin A was higher in peritumoral tissue than in tissue of ductal carcinoma, while in the case of lobular carcinoma the concentration of mammaglobin A was higher in carcinoma tis-sue than in peritumoral tissue. Conclusion. Mammaglobin A concentration in peritumoral tissue higher than 0.6704221 ng/mL, and in carcinoma tissue higher than 0.5784426 ng/mL, as well as mammaglobin A relative gene expression in carcino-ma tissue higher than 1.003, were determined as cut-off values. These values may identify patients who are at higher risk of metastatic disease, which would be treated with early radical ad-juvant treatment.