The purpose of this study was to compare the prognostic value of intra-tumoral microvessel density assayed by CD105 and CD146 in early breast cancer patients.
42 women with breast infiltrative ductal carcinoma (I and II-stages) were retrospectively reviewed. Intra-tumoral microvessel density was immunohistochemically examined using antibodies anti-CD105 and CD146 in paraffin-embedded tissues, and their association with classical prognostic-markers, metastatic recurrence, metastasis-free survival and overall survival was analyzed.
High microvessel density assessed by CD146 was significantly associated with a higher risk of developing metastasis (p = 0.0310) and a shorter metastasis-free survival (p = 0.0197). In contrast, when we used the CD105-antibody, we did not find any significant association. Finally, CD146 showed to be an independent predictive indicator for metastasis-free survival (p = 0.0055).
Our data suggest that the intra-tumoral microvessel density evaluated by CD146 may be a more suitable predictor of metastatic development than that evaluated by CD105 in early breast cancer.