COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT IMMUNOHISTOCHEMICAL METHODS IN THE ASSESSMENTOF ANGIOGENESIS - LACK OF PROGNOSTIC VALUE IN A GROUP OF 77 SELECTED NODE-NEGATIVE BREAST CARCINOMAS

There is evidence that tumor angiogenesis, as detected by immunohistoc hemical staining of endothelium, is of prognostic significance in brea st cancer, However, little attention has been paid to possible differe nces between antibodies or to quantitation of the stained microvessels . We compared three endothelial cell antibodies [anti-human von Willeb rand factor (anti-VWF, also termed factor VIII), anti-CD31, and anti-C D34] in archival paraffin-embedded specimens. Anti-CD34 and anti-VWF s howed better staining performances than anti-CD31, although the staini ng results with different antibodies were comparable. Two different me thods of microvessel quantitation (the highest microvessel count and p ercentage microvessel area) were evaluated and also showed significant correlation. From a retrospective database (n = 1000), 77 axillary no de-negative invasive ductal breast carcinomas were selected on the bas is of clinical outcome to maximize the prognostic power of the sample set (37 died due to a metastatic breast carcinoma, 40 showed no recurr ence during 8-yr followup). Microvessel quantitations were related to flow cytometric DNA ploidy, c-erb-B-2 overexpression, and estrogen rec eptor status of the tumor. Surprisingly, neither highest microvessel c ounts nor microvessel area measurements quantitated with anti-CD34 or anti-VWF immunohistochemistry were able to discriminate between favora ble and unfavorable outcome patients. Thus, our results suggest that f urther evidence is still needed on tumor angiogenesis immunohistochemi stry before it can be adopted as a prognostic marker in routine, clini cal practice.