THROMBOMODULIN IS A NEW BIOLOGICAL AND PROGNOSTIC MARKER FOR BREAST-CANCER - AN IMMUNOHISTOCHEMICAL STUDY

Background: Thrombomodulin (TM) is a natural anticoagulant which inhib its thrombin. Recent studies have reported that TM is correlated with vascular diseases and a few cancels. The aim of this study was to eval uate the role and the prognostic value of TM in breast cancer. Patient s and Methods: TM expression in samples from 60 invasive breast cancer patients was examined immunohistochemically with a polyclonal antibod y against TM. Results: TM staining was observed mainly on both the cyt oplasm and cell surface in cancer cells and on endothelial cells aroun d or in cancer tissue. TM expression in cancel cells was not correlate d with the clinicopathological features. However, low TM expression wa s significantly correlated with a high relapse rate (p=0.047 by the ch i(2) test and 0.05 by the Kaplan-Meier method). Conclusions: TM might play an active role in cancer invasion and metastasis, and serve as a new prognostic factor in invasive breast cancer.