Association of cytoplasmic HMGB1 (cHMGB1) expression with local tumor recurrence in triple-negative breast cancer.

Abstract

e12595 Background: Breast cancer is one of the most frequent neoplasms worldwide, contributing to women's morbimortality. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly aggressive subtype of cancer marked by negative estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors, and lack of the human epidermal growth factor 2 (C-erbB2, HER2/neu) gene overexpression. The high mobility group box-1 (HMGB1) is a factor that regulates malignant tumorigenesis, proliferation, and metastasis. Aim: Here, the HMGB1 expression was investigated as a prognostic factor for TNBC. Methods: Clinico-pathological data and surgical paraffin histopathology blocks were assessed from 85 patients treated at Haroldo Juaçaba Hospital (Ethics committee approval number 407.395). Samples were analyzed by immunofluorescence using the Tissue Microarray technique to determine the percentage of fluorescent cells with cytoplasmic HMGB1 (cHMGB1) expression. Results: The clinico-pathological data analysis indicated that patients were older than 50 years (68.2%) and diagnosed with grade 2–3 ductal carcinomas (91.8%). Tumor metastasis was observed in 9.9% of cases. TNBC patients that tumor cells presented high cHMGB1 fluorescence demonstrated increased local tumor recurrence compared with low expressing tumors (P=0.019). Five-year overall survival was simmilar between the patients with low (63%) versus high (66%) cHMGB1 expression (P=0.7441). Additionally, the risk of death was 0.8 (95% CI = 0.21–2.96). Conclusions: The cHMGB1 expression is associated with an increased tumor relapse in TNBC, not affecting patients' survival.