Vimentin Could be a Metastatic Marker in Triple Negative Breast Cancer
Author: Senthil Ponnusamy, Mohammed Naim, Mahboob Hasan, Amanullah Khan, Murad Ahmad
Category: Pathology
Abstract:
Bacground : The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of the breast carcinoma cells is considered to be an important determinant of aggressive, invasive, and metastatic behaviour of the breast cancer cells. Recent studies showed that Vimentin expression in Triple Negative Breast Carcinoma (TNBC) are associated with poor prognosis and indicates the occurrence of EMT mechanism.
Aim: To study Vimentin expressions in TNBC in females to analyse the diagnostic utility and comparison of the metastatic breast tumor cells with non-metastatic behavior of the breast cancer cells.
Materials & Methods: In this study vimentin expression was studied in 53 cases of TNBC in the North Indian female patients. Sections from the TNBC tumor-blocks were Silver Stain impregnated applying the Gomori's method to find out the integrity of basement membrane in tumor lobules.
Results: Vimentin immune expression score [VIES] in 53 TNBC cases under present study were found to be 47.17%. More than 3/4th (77.78%) cases of metastasizing TNBC showed VIES score of
>30, while it was only 15.4% in non-metastasizing cases and it was found to be highly significant (P value < 0.001)
Conclusion: The vimentin expression in the present TNBC cases demonstrated neoplastic epithelial to mesenchymal cells transformation with significant VIES can be helpful in detection of metastasis.
