PURPOSE: Since some reports that tumoric angiogenesis in breast cancer is significantly correlated with the presence of local or distant metastases, many clinicians determined the tumoric angiogenesis just as one of the prognostic factors. However, a consistent role of tumoric angiogenesis in metastatic progression was not completely resolved yet. We tried to evaluate the direct relationship between tumoric angiogenesis and bone marrow micrometastases to reveal the actual contribution of tumoric angigenesis to systemic spread of cancer cells in breast cancer patients.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seventy patients with breast cancer who underwent curative surgical resection were included in this study. We observed the micrometastases in bone marrow with RT-PCR method targeting to mRNA for cytokeratin and tumoric angiogenesis with image analyzer technique followed by immunohistochemical staining to CD 34 from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded specimens.
RESULTS: Incidence of bone marrow micrometastases was 17.1% (12/70) in surgically curable breast cancer patients. Possibility of bone marrow micrometastases tend to be increasing with an association of the presence of axillary lymph node invasion (P=0.03). High tumoric angiogenesis is associated with a high risk of bone marrow micrometastases (P=0.039).
CONCLUSION: High tumoric angiogenesis is necessary for bone marrow micrometastases but, not sufficient by itself. A further study may need to reveal other factors contributing the bone marrow spread of cancer cells, assoiciated with angiogenesis.
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