Abstract
Iron metabolism is very important in breast carcinoma. It is an essential micronutrient playing an important role in cell growth, energy metabolism and DNA synthesis. Iron bound transferrin interacts with a cell surface receptor, facilitating the transport of iron across the cell membrane. This is the transferrin receptor. Transferrin is a glycoprotein and is the chief iron transport protein in mammalian blood. These receptors are present in high numbers on proliferating and malignant cells and the higher the transferrin receptor level the more aggressive the tumor and greater the proliferative index. We have found that ferritin, an iron storage protein, is concentrated in breast cancer tissue and that anaplastic tumors have higher tissue ferritin levels (Fig. 1). Another study demonstrated that in anaplastic tumors ductal cells had abundant ferritin granules and prominent intracytoplasmic lumina, while mitochondria were sparse (Fig. 2).
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