Xu C, Wang H, He H, Zheng F, Chen Y, Zhang J, Lin X, Ma D, Zhang H. Low expression of TFPI-2 associated with poor survival outcome in patients with breast cancer.
BMC Cancer 2013;
13:118. [PMID:
23497249 PMCID:
PMC3607852 DOI:
10.1186/1471-2407-13-118]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2012] [Accepted: 03/12/2013] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Background
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the prognostic value of TFPI-2 expression in breast cancer patients through examining the correlation between TFPI-2 expression and breast cancer clinicopathologic features.
Methods
Immunohistochemical staining combined with digital image analysis was used to quantify the expression of TFPI-2 protein in breast tumor tissues. For evaluation of the prognostic value of TFPI-2 expression to each clinicopathologic factor, Kaplan-Meier method and COX’s Proportional Hazard Model were employed.
Results
TFPI-2 expression was significantly correlated with tumor size, lymph node metastasis, histologic grade, clinical stage, and vessel invasion. More importantly, TFPI-2 expression was also associated with disease-free survival (DFS) of breast cancer patients. We found that patients with high TFPI-2 expression had longer DFS compared with those with low or negative expression of TFPI-2 (P <0.05, log-rank test). Cox’s regression analysis indicated that TFPI-2 expression, histologic grade, and vessel invasion might be significant prognostic factors for DFS, while TFPI-2 expression and histologic grade were the most significant independent predictors for tumor recurrence. Compared with the group with low/high TFPI-2 expression, the TFPI-2 negative group was more likely to have tumor relapse. The hazard ratio of DFS is 0.316 (P <0.01).
Conclusions
Low or negative expression of TFPI-2 is associated with breast cancer progression, recurrence and poor survival outcome after breast cancer surgery. TFPI-2 expression in breast tumors is a potential prognostic tool for breast cancer patients.
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