Ki-67 is a prognostic marker for hormone receptor positive tumors.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To evaluate the utility of Ki67 as a prognostic marker in Luminal B node-negative breast cancer patients. METHODS: We identified 888 patients with invasive breast carcinomas who underwent surgery between 1997 and 2004. Several classical factors were collected age, tumor size, node involvement, tumor grade, estrogen and progesterone receptors, HER2 and Ki-67 expression. We analyzed if these parameters could be considered as a prognostic factor. In early Luminal B group, we investigated which of the following biological features provide information about bad prognosis lack of progesterone receptor expression, HER2 overexpression/amplification or high Ki-67 value. RESULTS: The majority of patients were alive and without relapse of tumor at the moment of the analysis (70 %). The prognostic factors founded in multivariate analysis were tumor size, node involvement, grade 3 and Ki-67 expression. When we stratified the sample by immunohistochemistry (IHC) in tumor subtypes, we assessed 680 patients and we observed 191 Luminal B tumors. The biological parameter related to the worst survival in absence of nodal involvement was Ki-67 value. CONCLUSIONS: Ki-67 represents an additional predictor of survival in Luminal B node negative breast cancer. Conversely, neither Progesterone-receptor nor HER2 status proved prognostic significance in this group in our study.