ANNALS OF CLINICAL AND ANALYTICAL MEDICINE, cilt.13, sa.8, ss.845-849, 2022 (ESCI)
Aim: In this study, the effect of c-erb-B-2 (HER-2/neu) expression on axillary lymph node involvement in Luminal-B breast cancer was examined. Material and Methods: One hundred seven female patients were included in this study who were classified as Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3 pathologically, with positive Estrogen (ER) and Progesterone Receptor (PR) and with the diagnosis of invasive ductal carcinoma with a single focal mass and not a synchronous tumour and received surgical therapy. The lymph node involvement ratio (LNIR) was divided into two groups as over and below 25%. These acquired data were compared with the groups with positive and negative c-erbB-2 gene expression, axillary LNI status, and LNIR separately. Results: The data of 107 female patients aged between 27 and 87 years were evaluated in this study. The mean age of the patients was 55.69 +/- 12.68 years. LNIR was found to be less than 25% in 76.6% (n: 82) of the patients, and over 25% in 23.4% (n: 25) of the patients. The c-erbB-2 positivity was significantly different in the axilla with and without metastatic lymphadenopathy (p =0.026). There was no statistically significant relationship between tumour diameter and metastatic lymphadenopathy. Although axillary metastatic lymphadenopathy positivity was found to be significant in patients with lymphovascular invasion (p<0.001), it was also found to be significant, as in the group with LNIR>25 (p<0.001). Discussion: This study demonstrated that high expression of c-erbB-2 is associated with poor prognosis of breast cancer by increasing axillary LNI. In hormone (Estrogen and Progesterone) positive patients, if c-erB-2 is also positive, there is greater number of axillary LNI.