Main author: Magnea Guðríður Frandsen
Institution or Company: Læknadeild, Háskóli Íslands
Co-Authors, Institution or Company:
Jón G. Jónasson, Háskóli Íslands, Landspítali. Laufey Tryggvadóttir, Krabbameinsskrá. Sigríður K. Böðvarsdóttir, Háskóli Íslands. Stefán Þ. Sigurðsson, Háskóli Íslands. Wilma E. Mesker, Leiden University Medical Center.
Introduction: The tumour-stroma ratio (TSR) has recently been validated as an integral part of tumour pathogenesis. In this research, tissue samples from a large cohort of Icelandic breast cancers were analysed by their tumour-stroma ratio (TSR). The aim was to analyse correlation between TSR and breast cancer specific (BCS) survival among breast cancer patients.
Methods: 938 hematoxylin-eosin stained formalin fixed and paraffin embedded breast cancer tissue sections were evaluated visually and put into two categories; stroma high tumours with >50% stroma on a microscope field, and stroma low with ≤50% stroma. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were plotted with log-rank test for 10 year BCS survival analysis in relation to the breast cancer subtypes, Nottingham grades and BRCA2 999del5 mutation.
Results: Breast cancer patients with non-luminal stroma high tumours had significantly worse BCS survival compared to the stroma low non-luminal patients and luminal patients of both stroma subgroups (p<0.0001). Patients with stroma high tumours of Nottingham grade 3 had worse BCS survival compared to the stroma low grade 3 patients and the patients with lower tumour grades of both stroma subgroups (p=0.037).
Conclusions: High stroma ratio in tumours predicts worse prognosis among patients with non-luminal breast cancer and high Nottingham grade.
