Immunohistochemical Expression of Angiogenic Marker CD34 in Invasive Ductal Breast Carcinoma and its Correlation with Morphometric and Histopathological Parameters

Abstract

Angiogenesis is a mechanism by which new blood vessels are developed in healing and tumor tissues, where it is necessary for regenerating growth, tumor cells survival and metastasis. CD34 is a trans membrane phosphoglycoprotein, first identified on hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. Clinically, it is associated with the selection and enrichment of hematopoietic stem cells for bone marrow transplants. Due to these historical and clinical associations, CD34 expression is almost ubiquitously related to hematopoietic cells, and it is a common misconception that CD34-positive (CD34+) cells in non-hematopoietic samples represent hematopoietic contamination . The aim of present work was to study the angiogenic marker CD34 in invasive ductal breast carcinoma to validate its ability to be added to the traditional histopathological parameters. Immunohistochemical technique was used to examine the expression of CD34 in benign and in invasive ductal breast carcinoma IDC. Present results showed higher expression of CD34 in IDC comparing to normal and benign breast tissues. Statistical analysis showed significant correlations between the expression of CD34 and histological tumor grade, lymph node metastasis (LNM), ER and PR. Current results suggest that CD34 protein may be valuable prognostic and therapeutic marker inhuman IDC patients.