Prognostic relevance of immunohistology, tumor size and vascular space involvement in axillary node negative breast cancer.

Adjuvant treatment for patients with axillary node negative (ANN) breast cancer is controversial because operation alone gives a 70% cure rate. Features which predict recurrence are needed and we therefore evaluated the predictive value of tumor diameter and vascular involvement as well as of estrogen receptors (ER), progesterone receptors (PR), p53, MIB-1, c-erb and PCNA demonstrated by immunohistological staining in 178 patients with ANN breast cancer. Although ER status, tumor diameter and vascular space involvement were significantly correlated to the development of recurrence, their sensitivity, specificity and predictive value were too low to give them clinical value.