Abstract
ductal carcinoma of the breast. Methods: Peripheral venous blood samples were collected prior to diagnostic biopsy from women with suspicious non-palpable mammographic lesions. Plasma ET-1 and Big ET-1 levels were determined in 30 patients with IDC, 30 with DCIS and 30 with benign lesions (controls), by performing ELISA. ET-1 and VEGF tissue expression was immunohistochemically determined. Potential correlationswith histological grade, hormone receptor status, Her2/neu amplification, tumor size, lymph node involvement and disease stage were investigated in IDC. Results: Big ET-1 plasma levels were significantly higher in IDC and DCIS patients compared to controls (p b 0.001 and p b 0.01, respectively). No significant differences in ET-1 levels were observed between the three groups. Moderate to strong IHC staining for ET-1 was observed in 3/29 and 7/23 IDC and DCIS patients, respectively. VEGF was significantly expressed in 8/27 and 8/23 IDC and DCIS patients, respectively. In IDC, plasma and tissue expression of ET-1 and plasma expression of Big ET-1 did not correlate with any of the analyzed clinicopathological characteristics or VEGF tissue expression. Conclusions: Plasma levels of Big ET-1 were a more sensitive indicator of ET-1 deregulation than those of ET-1 in our study. Our results support the potential clinical application of Big ET-1 as a breast cancer biomarker.
Published Version
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