Research

Does vimentin help to delineate the so-called 'basal type breast cancer'?

Renata U Kusinska¹ , Radzislaw Kordek¹ , Elzbieta Pluciennik³ , Andrzej K Bednarek³ , Janusz H Piekarski⁴ and Piotr Potemski²

¹  Department of Pathology, Medical University of Lodz, Copernicus Memorial Hospital, 4 Paderewski St., 93-509, Lodz, Poland

²  Department of Chemotherapy, Medical University of Lodz, Copernicus Memorial Hospital, 4 Paderewski St., 93-509 Lodz, Poland

³  Department of Molecular Cancerogenesis, Medical University of Lodz, 6/8 Mazowiecka St., 92-215 Lodz, Poland

⁴  Department of Surgical Oncology, Medical University of Lodz, Copernicus Memorial Hospital, 4 Paderewski St., 93-509, Lodz, Poland

author email corresponding author email

Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2009, 28:118doi:10.1186/1756-9966-28-118

Published:	20 August 2009

Abstract

Background

Vimentin is one of the cytoplasmic intermediate filament proteins which are the major component of the cytoskeleton. In our study we checked the usefulness of vimentin expression in identifying cases of breast cancer with poorer prognosis, by adding vimentin to the immunopanel consisting of basal type cytokeratins, estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 receptors.

Methods

179 tissue specimens of invasive operable ductal breast cancer were assessed by the use of immunohistochemistry. The median follow-up period for censored cases was 90 months.

Results

38 cases (21.2%) were identified as being vimentin-positive. Vimentin-positive tumours affected younger women (p = 0.024), usually lacked estrogen and progesterone receptor (p < 0.001), more often expressed basal cytokeratins (<0.001), and were high-grade cancers (p < 0.001). Survival analysis showed that vimentin did not help to delineate basal type phenotype in a triple negative (ER, PgR, HER2-negative) group. For patients with 'vimentin or CK5/6, 14, 17-positive' tumours, 5-year estimated survival rate was 78.6%, whereas for patients with 'vimentin, or CK5/6, 14, 17-negative' tumours it was 58.3% (log-rank p = 0.227).

Conclusion

We were not able to better delineate an immunohistochemical definition of basal type of breast cancer by adding vimentin to the immunopanel consisted of ER, PgR, HER2, CK5/6, 14 and 17 markers, when overall survival was a primary end-point.