The clinical pathological significance of ki67 in triple negative breast cancer

Objective To investigate the expression of proliferation cell antigen ki67 in triple negative breast cancer and to analyze its relationship to clinicopathological features and prognosis. Methods Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of ki67 in triple negative breast cancer tissues.Associations between the expression of ki67 and various clinicopathological characteristics as well as survival status were analysed. Result ki67 expression was significantly associated with tumor size, TNM stage, histological grade and lymph node metastasis in triple negative breast cancer(χ2=10.536, 16.824, 11.020, 7.180, P<0.05). Univariate survival analysis showed that tumor size, clinical stage, histological grade, lymph node metastasis and ki67 were associated with overall survival(OR=4.211, 3.800, 0.288, 3.502, 2.612, P<0.05). Using multivariate analysis, we found that lymph node metastasis was an independent prognostic factor(P<0.05, OR=2.768). Conclusion The expression of ki67 was correlated with TNM staging, tumor size, histological grading and lymph node.It has a certain value in assessing the prognosis of the triple negative breast cancer, which might be used as a candidate prognostic indicator.Multivariate analysis indicated that lymph node metastasis was an independent prognostic factor in patients with triple negative breast cancer. Key words: Triple negative breast cancer; ki67