Expression of FGD3 gene as prognostic factor in young breast cancer patients

Abstract

Abstract The FGD3 gene works as a cell migration inhibitor and seems to be a promising indicator of outcome in some human cancers including breast. In this study, we analysed for the first time the prognostic role of FGD3 in young breast cancer patients. We studied the relationship between traditional prognostic factors, FGD3 expression and outcome in ≤40 years breast cancer patients. We found that lower FGD3 expression decreased the probability of disease-free survival (p = 0.042) and overall survival (p = 0.007). In a multivariate analysis for overall survival AJCC stage (p = 0.005) and FGD3 expression (p = 0.03) resulted independent prognostic factors. Low FGD3 expression increased the risk of death from disease (HR 5.73, p = 0.03). Moreover, low FGD3 expression was associated with more widespread lymph node involvement (p = 0.04) and a lower FGD3 staining intensity was found in positive-lymph-node patients vs negative (p = 0.003) and in patients with ≥10 involved lymph nodes vs <10 (p = 0.05). Our results suggest FGD3 to be a significant independent prognostic factor in young breast cancer patients in terms of disease-free survival and overall survival. A lower expression increased the risk of recurrence and death from disease and was associated with widespread lymph node metastases.