Affiliations: [a] Breast Diseases Unit, Hospital del Mar, Barcelona, Spain | [b] Medicine College, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain | [c] Pathology Department, Hospital del Mar, Barcelona, Spain
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Maria Vernet-Tomás, Breast Diseases Unit, Hospital del Mar, Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 25-29, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. Tel.: +34 932 483332; E-mail: mvernet@psmar.cat. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5575-2475
Abstract: BACKGROUND:The p53 mutation in breast cancer confers a worse prognosis and is usually associated with p53 overexpression (p53+) on immunohistochemistry. Previous studies have shown that p53+ tumors could be associated with low axillary tumor burden (ATB). OBJECTIVE:We aimed to evaluate the association between p53+ and ATB in a large series of breast cancers as an aid to personalizing axillary surgical treatment. METHODS:We retrieved 1762 infiltrating breast carcinomas from our database that were treated with upfront surgery in Hospital del Mar from 2004 to 2018. We compared p53+ and p53-negative (p53-) tumors in terms of the percentage of cases with high ATB and overall survival. This comparison was made overall and for each immunophenotype. RESULTS:Overall, 18.7% of breast tumors were p53+. High ATB was less common in p53+ tumors than in p53- tumors in the luminal B-Her2-negative immunophenotype (6.2% versus 16.9%, respectively, P = 0.025), but not in the other immunophenotypes or overall. Overall survival was worse in patients with p53+ breast cancer (P = 0.002). CONCLUSION:p53+ breast cancers were associated with worse overall survival. However, low ATB was more common in these tumors than in p53- tumors in the luminal B-Her2-negative subtype. Information on p53 expression could be of use to predict ATB in some breast cancer tumors.
Keywords: p53, axillary tumor burden, breast cancer, immunophenotypes
DOI: 10.3233/BD-230013
Journal: Breast Disease, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 429-435, 2023
