Comparison of Microvessel Density with Prognostic Factors in Invasive Ductal Carcinomas of the Breast.

OBJECTIVE Angiogenesis plays a key role in tumor growth and metastasis. Determination of microvessel density is the most common technique used to evaluate the amount of the intratumoral angiogenesis in breast cancer. We have aimed to investigate the relationship with tumor angiogenesis and prognostic parameters in breast invasive ductal carcinomas. MATERIAL AND METHOD In this study, a total of 100 invasive ductal carcinoma patients, who were diagnosed at the Department of Pathology, Ataturk University Faculty of Medicine between the years 2003-2008, were re-evaluated. Patient characteristics and clinicopathological findings were obtained from archival records. In the present study, microvessel density was determined by immunohistochemical staining by using anti-CD34 monoclonal antibody in the paraffin blocks. First, the most vascular area was selected in the tumor under a low magnification (40x) by a light microscope and then microvessels were counted under a higher magnification (200x). Patients were classified as low and high microvessel density depending on their microvessel counts. Chi-square test and multivariate linear regression analysis were used for statistical analysis (p≤0.05). RESULTS We have determined that microvessel density increases as tumor size increases (p=0.001). Microvessel density was higher in patients with at least 10 lymph node metastases compared to those with no metastasis (p=0.05). However, there was no statistically significant difference between microvessel density and other prognostic factors such as histological grade, nuclear grade, patient age, vascular invasion, estrogen, progesterone receptor status, HER2/neu expression. CONCLUSION In our study, we have found that microvessel density is associated with tumor size and lymph node metastasis in patients with invasive ductal carcinoma.