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. 2008 Sep 15;14(18):5849-55.
doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-08-0669.

Prognostic effect of epithelial cell adhesion molecule overexpression in untreated node-negative breast cancer

Marcus Schmidt  1 , Dirk Hasenclever, Mitra Schaeffer, Daniel Boehm, Cristina Cotarelo, Eric Steiner, Antje Lebrecht, Wulf Siggelkow, Wolfgang Weikel, Ilka Schiffer-Petry, Susanne Gebhard, Henryk Pilch, Mathias Gehrmann, Hans-Anton Lehr, Heinz Koelbl, Jan G Hengstler, Martin Schuler
Affiliations

Prognostic effect of epithelial cell adhesion molecule overexpression in untreated node-negative breast cancer

Marcus Schmidt et al. Clin Cancer Res. .

Abstract

Purpose: Epithelial cell adhesion molecule (Ep-CAM) recently received increased attention not only as a prognostic factor in breast cancer but also as a potential target for immunotherapy. We examined Ep-CAM expression in 402 consecutive node-negative breast cancer patients with long-term follow-up not treated in the adjuvant setting.

Experimental design: Ep-CAM expression was evaluated by immunostaining. Its prognostic effect was estimated relative to overexpression/amplification of HER-2, histologic grade, tumor size, age, and hormone receptor expression.

Results: Ep-CAM status was positive in 106 (26.4%) patients. In multivariate analysis, Ep-CAM status was associated with disease-free survival independent of age, pT stage, histologic grade, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), as well as HER2 status (P = 0.028; hazard ratio, 1.60; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-2.44). Recently, so-called triple-negative (HER-2, ER, and PR) breast cancer has received increased attention. We noticed a similar association of Ep-CAM with disease-free survival in the triple-negative group as for the entire cohort.

Conclusion: In this study of untreated breast cancer patients, Ep-CAM overexpression was associated with poor survival in the entire cohort and in the subgroup of triple-negative breast cancer. This suggests that Ep-CAM may be a well-suited target for specific therapies particularly in HER-2-, ER-, and PR-negative tumors.

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