Clinicopathologic study associated with long-term survival in Japanese patients with node-negative breast cancer

This study was undertaken to determine the absolute and relative value of b lood vessel invasion (BVI) using both factor VIII-related antigen and elast ica van Gleson staining; proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), p53, c- erbB-2, and conventional prognostic factors in predicting relapse-free surv ival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) rates associated with long-term surviv al in Japanese patients with node-negative breast cancer. Two hundred patie nts with histological node-negative breast cancer were studied. We investig ated nine clinicopathological factors, including PCNA, p53, c-erbB-2 using- permanent-section immunohistochemistry, clinical tumour size (T), histologi cal grade (HG), mitotic index (MI), tumour necrosis (TN), lymphatic vessel invasion (LVI) and BVI, followed for a median of 10 years (range 1-20). Twe nty-one patients (10.5%) had recurrence and 15 patients (7.5%) died of brea st cancer. Univariate analysis showed that BVI, PCNA, T, HG, MI, p53, c-erb B-2 and LVI were significantly predictive of 20-year RFS or OS. Multivariat e analysis showed that BVI 0.0159, P = 0.0368), proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) (P = 0.0165, P = 0.0001), and T (P = 0.0190, P = 0.0399) wer e significantly independent prognostic factors for RFS or OS respectively. BW(, PCNA and T were independent prognostic indicators for RFS dr OS in Jap anese patients with node-negative breast cancer and are useful in selecting high-risk patients who may be eligible to receive strong adjuvant therapie s; (C) 2000 Cancer Research Campaign.