Molecular detection of the mammaglobin expression in the peripheral blood of Thai breast cancer patients.

ABSTRACT

Mammaglobin (hMAM) is expressed exclusively in the mammary glands of adult woman and mammary tumour cell lines. Thus, we examined hMAM expression as a market for the detection of carcinoma cells in the peripheral blood of patients with breast cancer in Thailand. In addition, we studied the correlation between hMAM expression in circulation mammary carcinoma cells and clinicopathological prognostic factors of breast cancer. Blood sample obtained from two hundred breast cancer patients at various stages of their disease and from sixty females without breast cancer (thirty healty individuals and thirty patients with various malignancies other than breast cancer) were screened for hMAM mRNA by a nested reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay. We found significant differences between patients with breast cancer and those with other malignancies or healthy controls. None of the samples from the peripheral blood of sixty females without breast cancer was positive, whereas sixty four (32%) of the two hundred sample from breast cancer patients tested positive for hMAM mRNA. While our hMAM nested RT-PCR approach has 100% specificity, its sensitivity is only 32%. The presence or absence of hMAM expression in these breast cancer patients was not associated with clinicopathological prognostic factors including stage, oestrogen and progesterone status, lymph node metastases, histological type, tumour size, differentiation, lymphatic invasion, vascular invasion, menopausal status or age. We summarized that the hMAM nested RT-PCR assay may be an effective tool for the detection of circulating mammary carcinoma cells of breast cancer patients. Nevertheless, the clinical relevance hMAM RT-PCR based tumour cell detections should be further evaluated in prospective studies.