Abstract
IntroductionTriple-negative breast cancers are a poor prognostic group of breast cancers that don’t respond to conventional hormonal and her2neu targeted therapy. A subset of triple-negative breast cancer is known to overexpress epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR); however prognostic significance of this biomarker has not been widely studied in our population. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the frequency of EGFR overexpression in triple-negative breast cancer in our setup and its association with prognostic and predictive factors.MethodsWe performed EGFR immunohistochemistry on 150 cases of triple-negative breast cancers. Intensity and percentage of EGFR expression were combined to formulate an EGFR score, that was compared with prognostic features of breast cancer and recurrence status of patients.ResultsPositive EGFR expression was noted in 18.7% ( 28 cases); out of which 16% (24 cases) showed low EGFR expression, whereas high EGFR expression was seen in 2.7% ( 4 cases). No significant association of EGFR expression was noted when compared with various clinicopathological parameters and recurrence status of the patients.ConclusionWe found EGFR protein expression in 18.7% of cases while high expression was seen in only 2.7 % cases of triple-negative breast cancer which may harbor underlying genetic alterations like altered EGFR gene copy number, chromosome 7 copy number or average EGFR gene: chromosome 7 ratio; therefore we suggest that molecular tests like FISH to evaluate these EGFR molecular alterations should be performed in EGFR over expressing triple negative breast cancers in our setup to identify patients that can benefit from anti-EGFR targeted therapy. Moreover, regional difference in EGFR expression (high expression in chinese population compared to our population) are may be due to different underlying genetic alterations in triple-negative breast cancers, further necessitating a need of devising personalized therapeutic protocols for locoregional population.
Highlights
Triple-negative breast cancers are a poor prognostic group of breast cancers that don’t respond to conventional hormonal and her2neu targeted therapy
Positive epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expression was noted in 18.7% ( 28 cases); out of which 16% (24 cases) showed low EGFR expression, whereas high EGFR expression was seen in 2.7% ( 4 cases)
No significant association of EGFR expression was noted when compared with various clinicopathological parameters of Triple-negative Breast Cancers (TNBC) (Table 1)
Summary
Triple-negative breast cancers are a poor prognostic group of breast cancers that don’t respond to conventional hormonal and her2neu targeted therapy. A subset of triple-negative breast cancer is known to overexpress epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR); prognostic significance of this biomarker has not been widely studied in our population. We aimed to evaluate the frequency of EGFR overexpression in triple-negative breast cancer in our setup and its association with prognostic and predictive factors. Activating mutations of EGFR results in uncontrolled cell proliferation and survival (Masuda et al, 2012) Such mutations of EGFR have been reported in many human cancers especially lung adenocarcinoma, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and colorectal carcinoma (Scagliotti et al, 2004; Chung et al, 2005; Hashmi et al, 2018b; Hashmi et al, 2018c). In this study we aimed to evaluate the EGFR overexpression in TNBC in our population and its prognostic significance
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