Prognostic Significance of Microvessel Density in Invasive Ductal Carcinoma of Breast

Background: Breast cancer is the most common malignant tumor and cause of death in women. Factors that play role in tumor metastasis are lymph node involvement, lack of tumor differentiation and hormone receptor expression, high proliferation rate, and angiogenesis. In the present study, we tried to evaluate the microvessel density (MVD) using Immunohistochemistry for the CD34 marker to investigate the amount of angiogenesis in breast cancer and its relationship with other histopathological parameters and compare it with normal tissue. Materials and Methods: 58 paraffin-embedded samples of breast cancer were enrolled. All blocks were sectioned and stained for estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor 2(HER 2/neu), ki67, and CD34 by immunohistochemistry (IHC) method. Results: The mean age of patients in this study was 49.6 ± 10.6 years. Statistically, there was a significant relationship between the grade of the tumor (P = 0.01), absence of expression of estrogen receptor (P = 0.008), and progesterone receptor (P = 0.003) with MVD. Conclusion: Due to the association between MVD, tumor grade, and absence of ER and PR expression, this valuable marker can play an important role in the prediction of prognosis in breast cancer patients and can lead to new-targeted therapy in the future.