ObjectiveTo systematically review the prognostic value of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in non-metastatic breast cancer patients. MethodsWe electronically searched PubMed, EMbase, WanFang Data, CNKI and CBM for collecting cohort studies about the prognostic relevance of CTCs in the peripheral blood of stage I to Ⅲ breast cancer patients from inception to March 20th, 2014. Two reviewers independently screened studies according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted data and assessed methodological quality. Meta-analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.2 software. ResultsA total of 7 studies involving 1 780 patients were eligible for final analyses. The results of meta-analysis showed that, the presence of CTCs was associated with both poor DFS (RR=2.24, 95%CI 1.92 to 2.61, P < 0.000 01) and OS (RR=2.55, 95%CI 1.99 to 3.28, P < 0.000 01). The results of subgroup analysis by detection time of CTCs showed that CTCs detected before and after adjuvant chemotherapy was a statistically significant prognostic factor (P≤0.000 4). ConclusionCTCs is an adverse prognostic factor in non-metastatic breast cancer patients, which is not significantly influenced by adjuvant chemotherapy.
Objective To systematically evaluate expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) and analyze its correlation between positive expression of VEGF protein and clinicopathologic features of patient with TNBC. Methods The published literatures relevant VEGF protein expression in TNBC and its relation to clinicopathologic features of patient with TNBC in China were retrieved by means of CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, China Biomedical, Chaoxing Medalink, PubMed databases, and other search tools. The literatures were independently filtered, extracted, and assessed by two reviewers according to the inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria. The meta-analysis was conducted by using RevMan 5.3 software. Results A total of 11 literatures were included and involved 1 838 patients (750 patients in the TNBC group and 1 088 patients in the non-TNBC group). The results of meta-nalysis showed that the positive expression of VEGF protein in the TNBC group was significantly higher than that in the non-TNBC group 〔OR=2.64, 95%CI (2.14, 3.26), P<0.000 01〕 , which was significantly increased in the TNBC patients with positive lymph node or stage Ⅲ–Ⅳ as compared with the negative lymph node or stage Ⅰ–Ⅱ 〔OR=0.30, 95% CI (0.14, 0.46), P=0.000 2; OR=0.43, 95% CI (0.29, 0.62), P<0.000 01〕 . However, the positive expression of VEGF protein was no associated with the age of patients with TNBC or tumor size (P>0.05). Conclusions VEGF highly expresses in TNBC and it is expected to be a new therapeutic target. Positive expression of VEGF protein is related to positive lymph node and late TNM stage, and it might be associated with prognosis of patient with TNBC.
Objective To investigate relationship between androgen receptor (AR) and clinicopathologic features of patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) in Xinjiang. Methods The clinical data of Han and Uygur patients with TNBC from the First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University from December 2012 to December 2016 were retrospectively analyzed. And the expression of the AR and the clinicopathologic features of the patients with TNBC were extracted. The results were analyzed by SPSS 19.0. Results A total of 178 patients with TNBC were included, including 127 Han and 51 Uygur patients. The positive rate of the AR expression in the 178 patients with TNBC was 21.3% (38/178), which was significantly related to the expression of Ki-67 (χ2=15.196, P<0.001), was not related to the ethnicity (χ2=0.203, P=0.688), age (χ2=0.221, P=0.715), tumor size (χ2=0.047, P=0.855), lymph node status (χ2=0.874, P=0.354), or histological grade (χ2=0.001, P=1.000). And there were no statistically significant differences in the clinicopathologic features between the Han patients with TNBC and the Uygur patients with TNBC. Conclusion AR positive expression is related to Ki-67, but clinicopathologic features have no significant differences between Han and Uygur patients with TNBC in Xingjinag.