Significance of combined TGF‑β1 and survivin expression on the prognosis of patients with triple‑negative breast cancer

Abstract

Compared with other types of breast cancer, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) has the characteristics of rapid progression, a lack of specific molecular targets for treatment and a poor prognosis. However, based on previously published studies, TGF-β1 and survivin are potentially meaningful for the prognosis of patients with TNBC. The present study was therefore designed to measure and compare the expression of transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) and survivin in tissue samples of TNBC and non-TNBC patients in order to evaluate their ability as prognostic indicators. In total, 90 TNBC and 52 non-TNBC tissue specimens were selected, following which immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of TGF-β1 and survivin in the cancer tissues. Subsequently, the potential association between the expression levels of these two proteins and the clinicopathological variables was analyzed. The expression levels of TGF-β1 and survivin in TNBC tissues were found to be significantly higher compared with those in the non-TNBC tissues. In addition, the results of the present study demonstrated that TGF-β1 expression was positively associated with survivin expression in the TNBC samples, but no significant correlation was found between TGF-β1 and survivin expression in the non-TNBC samples. Kaplan-Meier (K-M) analysis was performed to assess the levels of TGF-β1 and survivin in regard to patient survival, and univariate and multivariate Cox analyses of TGF-β1 and survivin protein expression were performed to analyze the overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) rates of patients with TNBC and non-TNBC. Although multivariate Cox analysis demonstrated that neither TGF-β1 or survivin were independent prognostic predictors of TNBC or non-TNBC, results of the K-M curve revealed that patients with TNBC with TGF-β1-and survivin-positive breast cancer exhibited shorter OS and PFS times. Multivariate Cox analysis demonstrated that in patients with TNBC, the combined expression of TGF-β1 and survivin may yield additional prognostic information, compared with patients with non-TNBC.

The Prognostic and Therapeutic Implications of the Chemoresistance Gene BIRC5 in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

“…Studies from 420 patients with long-term clinical follow-up showed that BIRC5 was found in 378 (90%) of the 420 primary breast cancer cases, and levels were substantially related to negative hormone receptor status ( p = 0.0028) [ 24 ]. A similar clinical study using tissue samples and patients found that out of 90 cases of TNBC, 19 (21.1%) tested negative for BIRC5 expression, and 71 (78.9%) tested positive [ 25 ]. Other studies reported that BIRC5 was over-expressed in 62 (45.6%) of 136 individuals who had their primary TNBC resected [ 26 ].…”