Characteristics of Invasive Breast Ductal Carcinoma, NOS, Diagnosed in a Tertiary Institution in the East Coast of Malaysia with a Focus on Tumor Angiogenesis

Background: Prognosis of breast cancer depends on classic pathological factors and also tumor angiogenesis.This study aimed to evaluate the clinicopathological factors of breast cancer in a tertiary centre with a focus onthe relationship between tumor angiogenesis and clinicopathological factors.
Methods: Clinicopathological datawere retrieved from the archived formal pathology reports for surgical specimens diagnosed as invasive ductalcarcinoma, NOS. Microvessels were immunohistochemically stained with anti-CD34 antibody and quantifiedas microvessel density.
Results: At least 50% of 94 cases of invasive breast ductal carcinoma in the study wereadvanced stage. The majority had poor prognosis factors such as tumor size larger than 50mm (48.9%), positivelymph node metastasis (60.6%), and tumor grade III (52.1%). Higher percentages of estrogen and progesteronereceptor negative cases were recorded (46.8% and 46.8% respectively). Her-2 overexpression cases and triplenegative breast cancers constituted 24.5% and 22.3% respectively. Significantly higher microvessel density wasobserved in the younger patient age group (p=0.012). There were no significant associations between microvesseldensity and other clinicopathological factors (p>0.05).
Conclusions: Majority of the breast cancer patients of thisinstitution had advanced stage disease with poorer prognostic factors as compared to other local and westernstudies. Breast cancer in younger patients might be more proangiogenic.