Journal Article

Immunoglobulin Kappa C Predicts Overall Survival in Node-Negative Breast Cancer

Chen, Zonglin, Boehm, Daniel, Solbach, Christine, Stewart, Joanna D., Gebhard, Susanne, Marchan, Rosemarie, Lebrecht, Antje, Schmidt, Marcus, Cotarelo, Christina, Koelbl, Heinz, Hengstler, Jan G., Battista, Marco, Sicking, Isabel, Cadenas, Cristina, Gerhold-Ay, Aslihan, Gehrmann, Mathias

2012

Overview

Biomarkers of the immune system are currently not used as prognostic factors in breast cancer. We analyzed the association of the B cell/plasma cell marker immunoglobulin kappa C (IGKC) and survival of untreated node-negative breast cancer patients. IGKC expression was evaluated by immunostaining in a cohort of 335 node-negative breast cancer patients with a median follow-up of 152 months. The prognostic significance of IGKC for disease-free survival (DFS) and breast cancer-specific overall survival (OS) was evaluated with Kaplan-Meier survival analysis as well as univariate and multivariate Cox analysis adjusted for age at diagnosis, pT stage, histological grade, estrogen receptor (ER) status, progesterone receptor (PR) status, Ki-67 and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2) status. 160 patients (47.7%) showed strong expression of IGKC. Univariate analysis showed that IGKC was significantly associated with DFS (P = 0.017, hazard ratio [HR] = 0.570, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.360-0.903) and OS (P = 0.011, HR = 0.438, 95% CI = 0.233-0.822) in the entire cohort. The significance of IGKC was especially strong in ER negative and in luminal B carcinomas. In multivariate analysis IGKC retained its significance independent of established clinical factors for DFS (P = 0.004, HR = 0.504, 95% CI = 0.315-0.804) as well as for OS (P = 0.002, HR = 0.371, 95% CI = 0.196-0.705). Expression of IGKC has an independent protective impact on DFS and OS in node-negative breast cancer.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: B cells / Biomarkers / Breast cancer / Breast Neoplasms - metabolism / Breast Neoplasms - pathology / Cancer / Carcinoma / Cell survival / Cloning / Confidence intervals / Development and progression / Disease-Free Survival / Dosage and administration / Epidermal growth factor / Epidermal growth factors / ErbB-2 protein / Estrogen receptors / Estrogens / Female / Gene expression / Genetic aspects / Gynecology / Health aspects / Humans / Immune system / Immunoglobulin kappa-Chains - metabolism / Immunoglobulins / Immunohistochemistry / Lymphatic system / Lymphocytes / Lymphocytes B / Medical diagnosis / Medical prognosis / Medical research / Medicine / Metastasis / Middle Aged / Multivariate analysis / Obstetrics / Pathology / Patient outcomes / Patients / Progesterone / Prognosis / Quality / Studies / Survival