Polyamines in human breast cancer and its relations to classical prognostic features: Clinical implications

Experimental evidence suggest an important role of polyamines in breast can cer development. Polyamines have been determined in tissue and erythrocyte samples from 100 patients with primary invasive breast cancer and 30 patien ts with fibroadenomas. Statistical analysis was performed in order to deter mine the prognostic value of the polyamine patterns of tumor tissues and er ythrocytes in comparison with clinical and histological prognostic factors. In malignant tissues, polyamine levels were significantly higher than in b enign tissues. They correlated with markers of tumor agressivity (axillary node involvement and especially with markers of high mitotic,rate as Ki-67 staining, histological grade). No correlation was found between estrogen an d progesterone status, tumor size and polyamine concentrations. Erythrocyte polyamines levels were identical between cancer patients and controls. The knowledge of the polyamine pattern in breast cancer could become useful in clinical practice particularly if polyamine metabolism is targeted as a th erapeutic approach.