Background: Microcalcification is a very important diagnostic information in breast cancer. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of clinicopathological features and prognosis of breast cancer with microcalcification and to detect biomarkers related to the possible mechanisms of microcalcifications.
Patients and methods: All 529 subjects with microcalcifications were selected from patients who had been examined using breast mammography. The control group did not have detectable microcalcifications, and was matched in a ratio of 1:3. The clinicopathological factors, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival were evaluated by SPSS.
Results: There was a significant difference in tumor size between the two groups, with larger tumors in the calcification group than the control group, and the proportion of patients in the calcification group with tumors of >5 cm was 20.4% vs 17.2% in the control group (P=0.041). The proportion of patients with lymph node metastasis in the calcification group was higher than that of the control group (35% vs 27.9%, P=0.027). The recurrence rate in ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) and invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) patients with microcalcification was higher than that in the control group (P=0.035 and 0.044). BMP-2 expression was higher in breast cancer tissues, especially in breast cancer tissues with microcalcifications. The recurrence rate in the BMP-2(+) group was higher than that in the BMP-2(-) group both in DCIS and IDC (P=0.044 and 0.049). Microcalcifications and the positive expression of BMP-2 were independent factors affecting the PFS of the breast cancer patients.
Conclusion: Through the analysis of this study, it was found that the prognosis of the patients with microcalcification was relatively poor. BMP-2 was highly expressed in the breast cancer with microcalcification and was associated with poor prognosis.
Keywords: BMP-2; breast cancer; immunohistochemistry prognosis; mammography; microcalcification.