Metastases of primary mixed no-special type and lobular breast cancer display an exclusive lobular histology.

Primary tumors with a mixed invasive breast carcinoma of no-special type (IBC-NST) and invasive lobular cancer (ILC) histology are present in approximately five percent of all patients with breast cancer and are understudied at the metastatic level. Here, we characterized the histology of metastases from two patients with primary mixed IBC-NST/ILC from the postmortem tissue donation program UPTIDER (NCT04531696). The 14 and 43 metastatic lesions collected at autopsy had morphological features and E-cadherin staining patterns consistent with pure ILC. While our findings still require further validation, they may challenge current clinical practice and imaging modalities used in these patients.

Transcriptomic characterization of the histopathological growth patterns in breast cancer liver metastases.

Metastatic breast cancer (mBC) remains incurable and liver metastases (LM) are observed in approximately 50% of all patients with mBC. In some cases, surgical resection of breast cancer liver metastases (BCLM) is associated with prolonged survival. However, there are currently no validated marker to identify these patients. The interactions between the metastatic cancer cells and the liver microenvironment result in two main histopathological growth patterns (HGP): replacement (r-HGP), characterized by a direct contact between the cancer cells and the hepatocytes, and desmoplastic (d-HGP), in which a fibrous rim surrounds the tumor cells. In patients who underwent resection of BCLM, the r-HGP is associated with a worse postoperative prognosis than the d-HGP. Here, we aim at unraveling the biological differences between these HGP within ten patients presenting both HGP within the same metastasis. The transcriptomic analyses reveal overexpression of genes involved in cell cycle, DNA repair, vessel co-option and cell motility in r-HGP while angiogenesis, wound healing, and several immune processes were found overexpressed in d-HGP LM. Understanding the biology of the LM could open avenues to refine treatment of BC patients with LM.

Rapid autopsies to enhance metastatic research: the UPTIDER post-mortem tissue donation program.

Research on metastatic cancer has been hampered by limited sample availability. Here we present the breast cancer post-mortem tissue donation program UPTIDER and show how it enabled sampling of a median of 31 (range: 5-90) metastases and 5-8 liquids per patient from its first 20 patients. In a dedicated experiment, we show the mild impact of increasing time after death on RNA quality, transcriptional profiles and immunohistochemical staining in tumor tissue samples. We show that this impact can be counteracted by organ cooling. We successfully generated ex vivo models from tissue and liquid biopsies from distinct histological subtypes of breast cancer. We anticipate these and future findings of UPTIDER to elucidate mechanisms of disease progression and treatment resistance and to provide tools for the exploration of precision medicine strategies in the metastatic setting.

Intra-patient and inter-metastasis heterogeneity of HER2-low status in metastatic breast cancer.

INTRODUCTION: Anti-HER2 antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) have shown important efficacy in HER2-low metastatic breast cancer (mBC). Criteria for receiving ADCs are based on a single assay on the primary tumour or a small metastatic biopsy. We assessed the intra-patient inter-metastasis heterogeneity of HER2-low status in HER2-negative mBC. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We included samples of 10 patients (7 ER-positive and 3 ER-negative) donated in the context of our post-mortem tissue donation program UPTIDER. Excisional post-mortem biopsies of 257 metastases and 8 breast tumours underwent central HER2 immunohistochemistry (IHC), alongside 41 pre-mortem primary or metastatic samples. They were classified as HER2-zero, HER2-low (HER2-1+ or HER2-2+, in situ hybridisation [ISH] negative) or HER2-positive (HER2-3+ or HER2-2+, ISH-positive) following ASCO/CAP guidelines 2018. HER2-zero was further subdivided into HER2-undetected (no staining) and HER2-ultralow (faint staining in ≤10% of tumour cells). RESULTS: Median post-mortem interval was 2.5 h. In 8/10 patients, HER2-low and HER2-zero metastases co-existed, with the proportion of HER2-low lesions ranging from 5% to 89%. A total of 32% of metastases currently classified as HER2-zero were HER2-ultralow. Intra-organ inter-metastasis heterogeneity of HER2-scores was observed in the liver in 3/6 patients. Patients with primary ER-positive disease had a higher proportion of HER2-low metastases as compared to ER-negative disease (46% versus 8%, respectively). At the metastasis level, higher percentages of ER-expressing cells were observed in HER2-low or -ultralow as compared to HER2-undetected metastases. CONCLUSIONS: Important intra-patient inter-metastasis heterogeneity of HER2-low status exists. This questions the validity of HER2-low in its current form as a theranostic marker.

Histopathological growth patterns and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in breast cancer liver metastases.

Liver is the third most common organ for breast cancer (BC) metastasis. Two main histopathological growth patterns (HGP) exist in liver metastases (LM): desmoplastic and replacement. Although a reduced immunotherapy efficacy is reported in patients with LM, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) have not yet been investigated in BCLM. Here, we evaluate the distribution of the HGP and TIL in BCLM, and their association with clinicopathological variables and survival. We collect samples from surgically resected BCLM (n = 133 patients, 568 H&E sections) and post-mortem derived BCLM (n = 23 patients, 97 H&E sections). HGP is assessed as the proportion of tumor liver interface and categorized as pure-replacement ('pure r-HGP') or any-desmoplastic ('any d-HGP'). We score the TIL according to LM-specific guidelines. Associations with progression-free (PFS) and overall survival (OS) are assessed using Cox regressions. We observe a higher prevalence of 'any d-HGP' (56%) in the surgical samples and a higher prevalence of 'pure r-HGP' (83%) in the post-mortem samples. In the surgical cohort, no evidence of the association between HGP and clinicopathological characteristics is observed except with the laterality of the primary tumor (p value = 0.049) and the systemic preoperative treatment before liver surgery (p value = .039). TIL is less prevalent in 'pure r-HGP' as compared to 'any d-HGP' (p value = 0.001). 'Pure r-HGP' predicts worse PFS (HR: 2.65; CI: (1.45-4.82); p value = 0.001) and OS (HR: 3.10; CI: (1.29-7.46); p value = 0.011) in the multivariable analyses. To conclude, we demonstrate that BCLM with a 'pure r-HGP' is associated with less TIL and with the worse outcome when compared with BCLM with 'any d-HGP'. These findings suggest that HGP could be considered to refine treatment approaches.