Tumor budding in invasive breast carcinoma: correlation with clinicopathological parameters, hormone receptor status, and survival: an observational study

OBJECTIVE: Tumor budding is currently thought to be associated with worse prognosis. This study aims to examine tumor budding in invasive ductal-type breast carcinoma and its relationship with other clinicopathological parameters and overall survival. METHODS: All the H&E slides of 198 patients were re-evaluated for the histological grade, angiolymphatic invasion, perineural invasion, lymph node status, extranodal extension, multicentricity, pT, presence of the tumor budding, tumor budding score (i.e., low, intermediate, or high). Overall survival was considered the period after surgery until death. SPSS was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: Tumor budding was identified in 98 (49.5%) patients. Tumor budding score was low in 41 (41.8%) of 98 cases, intermediate in 25 (25.5%), and high in 32 (32.7%). We determined a strong correlation between tumor budding and poor prognostic variables such as tumor size, pT stage, angiolymphatic invasion, perineural invasion, number of metastatic axillary lymph nodes, overall survival, and extranodal tumor extension in metastatic lymph nodes. This strong correlation was also present for the tumor budding score. CONCLUSION: Tumor budding may be a prognostic indicator for breast cancer.