VIMENTIN EXPRESSION, PROLIFERATING CELL NUCLEAR ANTIGEN AND FLOW CYTOMETRIC FACTORS - PROGNOSTIC ROLE IN BREAST-CANCER

A series of 71 patients undergoing surgery for primary breast carcinom a was prospectively studied in order to evaluate the relative weight f or four biologic factors (intermediate filament vimentin expression, p roliferating cell nuclear antigen [PCNA], flow cytometric DNA ploidy a nd S-phase fraction) and of several clinicopathologic and biologic fea tures in predicting clinical outcome (disease-free intel val). In univ ariate statistical analysis, positivity of axillary nodes, high number of mitoses, high nuclear grade, high histologic grade, positivity of vimentin, high flow cytometric S-phase fraction (FCM-S) value, high PC NA and high silver-stained nuclear organizer regions scores were signi ficantly related to risk of relapse. In multivariate analysis (Cox's l ogistic regression) only histologic grade (3) and high FCM-S values (> 10.7) were independently related to risk of relapse, with hazard ratio s of 9.84 and 7.98, respectively. The results of our preliminary, pros pective study suggest that FCM-S, in addition to morphologic criteria (histologic grade), may be an important biologic indicator in determin ing breast cancer patients' prognosis.