Local Invasive Limits And Expression Of Matrix Metalloproteinase-9, Estrogen And Progesterone Receptor In Breast Cancer

In the therapeutics of early-stage breast cancer, breast-conserving treatment (BCT) is being accepted by many a medical oncologists. Appearance and development of BCT is due to research of tumor biology on breast cancer. The incision margin of breast tissue around primary tumor in BCT is very important for surgeons because a positive margin (breast cancer cells found) can develop local recurrence after operation. Foreign oncologists, in the past, had completed plenty of work on research of infiltrating distance about breast cancer. The continued-sectioning method was applied to samples of breast cancer tissue and infiltrating distance of different direction was acquired. Chinese surgeons, on the other hand, had carried on experiment of infiltrating distance from the edge of primary tumor to nipple. If clarifying the infiltrating distance of fresh breast cancer tissue, surgeons will get a negative margin (breast cancer cells no found) when operating on breast cancer patients. It will be helpful to reduce the local recurrence rate apparently. On the other hand, uncontrolled proliferation, disorder of differentiation, infiltration and metastasis are important characters on malignant tumor cells. As a complex process, infiltration and metastasis of malignant tumor is associated with motility, motility factor with its receptor, signal transduction, hereditary defect, tumor metastasis-related gene and tumor suppressor gene. As tumor promotion genes, matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) play an essential role in malignant tumor's infiltration and metastasis. Matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), alsonamed gelatinase B or type Ⅳ collagenase B, can degrade type Ⅳ collagen and laminin in the cell basement membrane. It is helpful to infiltrate and metastasize for malignant tumor cells. Meanwhile, estrogen and progesterone receptor (ER&PR) status is an important prognostic factor for breast cancer. It is associated with histological grade, pathological stage, proliferating activity and survival rate of 5 years.In this study, 35 samples of fresh breast cancer tissue from modified radical mastectomy were investigated. Methods of continued-sectioning (each 1mm) and hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining were applied to the process of section preparation. With light microscope, infiltrating distance of primary tumor was measured. The farthest positive section (breast cancer cells found) was the sign of infiltrating distance. Infiltrating distance A of 30 breast cancer tissue samples is from the edge of primary tumor to nipple and infiltrating distance B of 35 breast cancer tissue samples is from the edge of primary tumor to axillary fossa. Local invasive limits of breast cancer may be defined with the above distance. On the other hand, expression of MMP-9, ER and PR in 35 samples of breast cancer tissue and 30 samples of breast fibroadnoma was assayed by immunohistochemistry (IHC) method. The main conclusions in this study are as follows. 1. The local invasive limits on breast cancer is within 2.0cm around primary tumor. Histological grade of breast cancer is correlative to infiltrating distance B. The correlation between infiltrating distance and distance from the edge of primary tumor to nipple is not confirmed.Expression of MMP-9 in breast cancer is higher compared with that2. in breast fibroadenoma. 3. Expression of MMP-9 in breast cancer with lymph node metastasis is higher compared with that in breast cancer without lymph node metastasis. 4. Expression of MMP-9 in breast cancer whose infiltrating distance A is more than 0.5cm is higher compared with that in breast cancer whose infiltrating distance A is within 0.5cm.　5. In this study, the correlation between ER and PR status and infiltrating distance is not confirmed. The correlation between ER and PR status and positive MMP-9 expression of breast cancer is not confirmed, too.The development direction of future research will focus on two targets. One is to increase the number of samples on breast cancer in order to clarify the correlation a...