• Anna M Badowska-Kozakiewicz, Michał P Budzik, Anna Liszcz, Maciej T Sobieraj, Aleksandra I Czerw, Maria Sobol, Janusz Patera, and Andrzej Deptała.
• Department of Biophysics and Human Physiology, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
• Arch Med Sci. 2019 Oct 1; 15 (6): 1433-1442.

IntroductionTriple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is characterized by a worse prognosis than other breast cancer subtypes. TNBC is defined by lack of expression of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2. The aim of this analysis was to evaluate the relationship between immunohistochemical expression of novel prognostic markers (erythropoietin (EPO) and erythropoietin receptor (EPO-R)) and clinicopathological features of TNBC and non-TNBC patients.Material And MethodsOur analysis was conducted on a group of 162 patients with breast carcinoma with lymph node metastasis (111 TNBC and 51 non-TNBC). All statistical analyses were performed with SPSS software v 12.0.ResultsHistopathologic subtyping of the 111 triple negative breast cancers identified 89.1% invasive ductal carcinomas of no special type and 10.9% other special types of cancers. TNBC more often presented EPO-R and EPO expression (36%; 37.8%) than non-TNBC (23.5%; 29.4%). Non-TNBC subgroup showed statistically significant correlation only between Ki-67 expression and histological grade (G1-G3) (p < 0.001), while TNBC subgroup demonstrated significant correlation between Ki-67 expression and histological grade (G1-G3) and tumor size (pT1-pT4) as well (p = 0.002; p = 0.042), between the EPO-R expression and histological grade (G1-G3) (p < 0.001).ConclusionsThe relationship between the expression of EPO-R and histological malignancy grade in triple negative breast cancer, suggests that the present EPO-R expression in TNBC may constitute an additional prognostic factor.Copyright: © 2018 Termedia & Banach.

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