Plasma prolactin as an indicator of disease progression in advanced breast cancer

Article Abstract:

The hormone prolactin clearly plays a role in the development and function of the normal human breast. Furthermore, research on laboratory animals has implicated prolactin in the development of breast cancer. Evidence has now begun to accumulate suggesting that in humans with breast cancer, higher levels of prolactin circulating in the blood are associated with a poorer prognosis. To examine this relationship in greater detail, 144 breast cancer patients were measured for circulating prolactin levels. Also measured were 60 healthy women, who served as controls. Preoperative prolactin levels were above the normal range in 48.6 percent of the 64 premenopausal patients and in 57.5 percent of the 80 postmenopausal patients. There were no statistically significant differences in prolactin levels that could be correlated with the stage of disease. The prolactin levels dropped as a part of successful response to treatment and remained elevated in those patients who did not respond to adjuvant therapy. However, the prolactin levels began to rise again in patients who later developed metastatic spread of disease. It was found that the rise in prolactin preceded clinical evidence of metastasis by two to three months. However, it was found that, in contrast to metastatic spread, most patients who developed local recurrence did not experience elevated prolactin levels. The results indicate that the monitoring of prolactin levels is likely to be beneficial for determining appropriate patient treatment. In addition, it is curious that this study was unable to identify differences between the premenopausal women and the postmenopausal women; this observation needs to be validated and perhaps studied further. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Prolactin

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Is DNA ploidy an independent prognostic indicator in infiltrative node-negative breast carcinoma?

Article Abstract:

The chromosome complement contained in a tumor cell has been shown to be a significant prognostic factor for a number of different tumors. In most tumors, a normal, or diploid, chromosome complement is associated with a favorable prognosis, while an abnormal, or aneuploid, chromosome complement is associated with a poorer prognosis. Since the chromosome complement is difficult to measure directly, most investigators use an automated measurement of DNA content to infer the chromosome complement. Often, the automated method chosen is flow cytometry, in which cell nuclei, fluorescently stained for DNA, are dribbled through a computerized device which records the quantity of DNA in each individual cell. To determine if flow cytometry of DNA levels provides prognostic information in cases of node-negative infiltrative breast adenocarcinoma, paraffin-embedded specimens were obtained from 165 cases. The nuclei from the cancerous cells were isolated and stained. Measurement of the DNA content revealed that 57 percent of the tumors were aneuploid. However, the survival of patients with aneuploid tumors was not significantly different from the survival of patients with diploid tumors. High-grade tumors were found to be more likely to be aneuploid, and no association between age and ploidy was observed. The flow cytometric measurement of DNA is appealing because of its simplicity and convenience, but in the case of infiltrative node-negative breast adenocarcinoma, the test does not seem to provide clinically useful information. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Evaluation, Flow cytometry, Adenocarcinoma, Ploidy

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