Abstract 183P
Background
High c-Met expression is involved in human carcinogenesis, tumour progression and resistance to antineoplastic treatments in several human malignancies. The c-Met receptor is overexpressed in about 20-30% of invasive breast cancers, but its prognostic value in clinical practice is still debated.
Methods
We retrospectively reviewed 105 patients with histologically confirmed ER+/HER2- early breast cancer (BC) who received surgical and adjuvant treatment at our Institution from July 2009 to January 2018. The value of c-Met expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry on surgical specimens. To investigate the relationship between c-Met expression levels and prognosis, we compared Disease Free Survival (DFS) and Breast Cancer Specific Survival (BCSS) in the subgroups of patients with high c-Met (≥50%) and low c-Met (<50%) value, respectively. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional regression models were performed to assess the prognostic impact of clinicopathological parameters for both DFS and BCSS.
Results
A significant relationship between high c-Met and tumour size (T≥2cm), high Ki67 (≥20%) and low progesteron receptor expression (≤20%) was observed. At a median follow up of 60 months, results showed that c-Met overexpression was related to significantly worse DFS (p=0.00026) and BCSS (p=0.0013). On univariate analysis, larger tumours, elevated Ki67 and c-Met values were associated to significant higher risk of recurrence or death. In multivariate COX regression model for DFS, tumour size and high c-Met expression were found to be independent poor predictors while ki67 was not longer statistically associated with worse outcome. The multivariate analysis for BCCS showed that patients with larger tumours had significantly higher risk of death (p=0.017) and a trend towards a poorer survival was registered in the cohort of BC with high c-Met levels (p=0.084).
Conclusions
In our series, high c-Met expression correlated with worse survival outcomes. Further studies are warranted to validate c-Met level as a potential therapeutic guide in ER+/HER2- early BC.
Clinical trial identification
Editorial acknowledgement
Legal entity responsible for the study
University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli.
Funding
Has not received any funding.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.