Study of serum hepatocyte growth factor (C - Met ligand)‎ in Egyptian females with breast cancer

الملخص EN

Background : Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and its receptor c-Met play important roles in mammary differentiation and in mammary carcinogenesis.

High levels of HGF can increase tumorigenecity, induce cell motility and enhance invasiveness and metastasis.

Aim : The present study aims at estimation of the plasma level of HGF in females with benign breast lumps and females with breast carcinoma and correlating its levels with the well known prognostic parameters e.g., tumor size ,grade , number of lymph nodes involved , stage, the presence or absence of estrogen and progesterone receptors and angiogenesis.

Subjects and Methods : The study included sixty eight adult premenopausal females were divided into : Group1 (Control group) : it consisted of fifteen normal healthy volunteer females of comparable age and socioeconomic status as the patients group and Group2 (Patients group): it consisted of fifty -three patients subdivided into two subgroups : Group2A (fifteen females with benign breast lumps) and Group2B (thirty-eight females with breast carcinoma).

To all subjects a though clinical examination was done.

Plain x-ray for the chest, ultrasonography on the abdomen and pelvis, pre- operative fine needle aspiration cytology for any breast lump then staging of carcinoma according to TNM classification were also done.

After an overnight fast, 5 ml blood were withdrawn from all subjects (before surgery for breast cancer patients) and serum was used for estimation of fasting glucose, urea, creatinine and uric acid levels, alanine aminotransferase activities and C-reactive protein.

Also an aliquot was kept at-20° C for serum Hepatocyte Growth Factor estimation.

Histopathological examination of the breast mass was done to confirm the diagnosis, and correlate to level with the prognostic parameters.

Results : In the breast study five patients with benign breast lumps (30%) had positive family history of cancer, Four (26.6%) had history of intake of oral contraceptive pills and three(20%) were nullipara.

Nine patients (60%) had their benign breast lumps as fibro adenoma and four patients (26.6%) had fibrocystic disease of the breast and two (13.4%) patients had chronic non specific inflammation.

All breast cancer patients (n=38) had infiltrating ductal carcinoma (IDC).The median value of Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) was311pg / ml (177-814 pg / ml) in the control group and was 554 Pg / ml (279-1220) in patients with breast lumps group, while its level was 1073.5 pg / ml (356- 2352 pg / ml) in whole breast cancer patients group and was 1078 pg / ml (491- 2352 pg / ml) in patients having breast cancer without lymph node (LN) metastasis and was 1069pg / ml(356- 2244pg / ml) in patients who had breast cancer with LN metastasis.

Conclusion : Significant increase in HGF levels were found in patients with benign breast lumps and in breast cancer patients as serum level of HGF in whole breast cancer patients was higher and showed significant increase when compared with both control and benign breast lumps groups.

Serum level of HGF is a negative or an independent prognostic indicator of breast cancer.