Association of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) with hyperglycemia in the follow-up of Chinese non-metastatic breast cancer patients.

Abstract

e23020 Background: CTCs has been confirmed to associate with a poor outcome of breast cancer at primary diagnosis. To date, CTC has not been studied with sufficient details in the follow-up of non-MBC pts, especially in Chinese population. We investigated the associations of CTC with clinicopathological features and metabolic factors to gain insight into potential interactions between physiology and disease burden. Methods: We recruited 264 cases of postoperative pts with non-MBC in Guangdong General Hospital from Jan 2009 to Dec 2015. For each enrolled pts 7.5mL blood samples were drawn for CTC enumeration using the CellSearch system. CTC results were correlated with clinicopathological features, obesity related indicators and HBsAg. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to further determine the independent predictors of CTC. The study defined CTC positive as CTC ≥1. Results: In 10.6 % of all pts (n = 28) a median of 1 (range, 1–108) CTC was detected. A pT1 tumor was present in 47% of pts, 11.4 % had G1 grading and 64.4 % were node-negative. The positive rate of CTCs in pts with IDC and ILC was lower than that in pts with other pathological types (9% and 11.1% vs 28.6% P=0.02). A similar trend that approached significance was noted for age (p=0.062), histological grade( p=0.087), invasion of the nipple areola (p=0.06). CTCs was positively correlated with blood glucose (p=0.015), and negatively correlated with high density lipoprotein (p=0.049). In addition, glycated hemoglobin was positively associated with CTC in correlations that neared significance (p=0.059). The result of multivariate logistic regression analysis is shown in the Table. No associations were observed in triglycerides, free fatty acid, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein and HBsAg. Conclusions: This study suggested pathological type and blood glucose were independent predictors of CTC, supporting the notion that high fasting glucose level in BC pts may have severe disease burden, leading to a higher frequency of CTC. [Table: see text]