Expression of E-cadherin and syndecan-1 in axillary lymph node metastases of breast cancer with and without extracapsular extension.

BACKGROUND

Extracapsular extension of axillary lymph node (ECE) has significantly increased the risk of locoregional and distant recurrence in breast cancer patients.

OBJECTIVE

Identify markers with high biological aggressiveness since it may serve as a prognostic indicator or adjunct to standard treatment.

MATERIAL AND METHOD: The authors immunostained 115 axillary lymph nodes of invasive ductal carcinoma with syndecan-1 and E-cadherin.

RESULTS

The presented data shows a significantly higher number of positive lymph node (8.48 vs. 4.15; p < 0.0001) and larger primary tumor size (3.53 vs. 2.79; p = 0.0029) in ECE patients. Sixty-one cases had node positive and without evidence of ECE, 54 cases had ECE. Syndecan-1 was found to be of significantly high expression (p = 0.001). There was no significant difference in the expression of E-cadherin during progression into extracapsular area (p = 0.12).

CONCLUSION

E-cadherin displays high expression in nodal breast cancer metastases that may have re-expression and has coordinate function with syndecan-1 while invading to the surrounding fatty tissue. The protein is, therefore, likely to play a role in the invasiveness and aggressiveness.