Ki67 expression in Iranian Triple-Negative breast cancer patients

Purpose: This study is focused on triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in Iranian patients. the primary goal was to determined ki67 expression in these patients as it is an independent poor prognostic factor. Patient & methods: There were 560 breast cancer patients treated at 7tir hospital, between 2002and 2007 .74 patients were included in this study as TNBC. In 40 patients Ki67 expression was assessed by immunohistochemistry(IHC). Analysis of collected data were performed retrospectively . Result: 40 triple-negative breast cancer patients with known Ki67 expression were analyzed. The median expression of Ki67 was 37.1% (2%-90%) for patients with TNBC. There were 30 TNBC patients with more than 15% Ki67 expression which none of them was in grade 1, 40% were in grade 2 and 60% in grade 3. In this group of patients TNM staging for T and N was assessed. 20% of cases had T1 disease, 76.7% had T2 and 3.3% had T3. No lymph node involvement was reported in 30% of cases, N1 in 30%, N2 in 26.7% and N3 in 13.3%.Conclusion: As positive stained cancer cells with cut-off value of > 13-15% was be found to associated with higher response to chemotherapy and increased mortality independently, aggressive treatment in this patient have a significant impact on their prognosis.