The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between
nestin expression and clinicopathological characteristics, immunohistochemical markers and to determine the prognostic impact of
nestin expression in
breast cancer so as to lay a foundation for the treatment of
breast cancer. A total of 109 patients who were histologically diagnosed with
breast cancer and underwent radical operations from January 2006 to September 2007 in China Medical University were enrolled in the study.
Nestin protein expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. The relationship between
nestin and other parameters was analyzed by using chi-square test and Fisher's exact test.
Nestin expression was observed in 37.6% (41/109) of cases. There were no significant differences between the age of >40 and ≤40 years group in terms of
nestin expression (39.8 vs 18.2%; P = 0.161). The rate of
nestin expression between those with and without
lymph node metastasis was not significantly different (X (2) = 0.086; P = 0.769). The 5-year survival rates of the patients with
nestin expression and those without were 34.1% (14/41) and 55.9% (38/68), respectively (P = 0.028). Overall,
triple-negative breast cancers had higher expression rates than other
cancers (54.1 vs 29.2%; P = 0.011).
Nestin expression rate in ER- and PR-negative
tumors was found to be significantly higher than cases that were ER- and PR-positive (P = 0.011 and P = 0.036, respectively). However, it was not found that HER2 expression was related to
nestin expression (P = 0.120). These results suggest that the expression of
nestin might play an important role in the prognosis of
breast carcinoma, especially in the triple-negative subgroups.