Research article

Allelic imbalances of chromosomes 8p and 18q and their roles in distant relapse of early stage, node-negative breast cancer

Aki Morikawa^1,2 , Tanisha Y Williams¹ , Luc Dirix³ , Cecile Colpaert⁴ , Michael Goodman² , Robert H Lyles⁵ , Diansheng Zhong¹ and Wei Zhou¹

¹  Department of Hematology and Oncology, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA

²  Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

³  Department of Oncology, General Hospital Saint-Augustinus, Antwerp, Belgium

⁴  Department of Pathology, University Hospital Antwerp, Edegem, Belgium

⁵  Department of Biostatistics, Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

author email corresponding author email

Breast Cancer Research 2005, 7:R1051-R1057doi:10.1186/bcr1349

Published:	2 November 2005

Abstract

Introduction

Identification of breast cancer patients at risk for postoperative distant relapse is an important clinical issue. Existing pathological markers can predict disease recurrence only to a certain extent, and there is a need for more accurate predictors.

Methods

Using 'counting alleles', a novel experimental method, we determined allelic status of chromosomes 8p and 18q in a case-control study with 65 early stage, node negative, invasive ductal carcinomas (IDCs). The association between allelic imbalance (AI) of both chromosomal markers and distant relapses was examined.

Results

Eighty percent of tumors contained 8pAI and sixty-eight percent of tumors contained 18qAI. However, none of the tumor samples retained both chromosome 8p and 18q alleles. More importantly, tumors with 8pAI but not 18qAI were more likely to have distant relapse compared to tumors with 18qAI but not 8pAI.

Conclusion

Our finding suggests that differential allelic loss of chromosomes 8p and 18q may represent subtypes of early stage IDC with different tumor progression behaviors.