Expression of fascin in Invasive mammary cancer - A study at a Tertiary care centre in Southern India

Abstract

Introduction and Aim: Breast cancer is the commonest malignancy in women. Most women do not die of the primary tumor but from metastasis and local invasion. Augmented motility of cancer cells corroborates with greater metastatic potential, that is brought about by actin cytoskeleton. Fascin, a cytoplasmic F-actin-bundling protein that cross-links actin filaments and its overexpression is strongly associated with metastatic progression and poor prognosis. The present study aims to determine the fascin protein expression by immunohistochemistry in invasive breast carcinoma and to correlate the same with the existing prognostic factors.   Methods: Immunohistochemical expression of fascin in 100 cases of invasive mammary carcinoma was studied. Data collected was scored based on intensity and statistically analyzed using GNU-PSPP version 0.10 software. To determine significant clinico-pathological differences between fascin expression in positive and negative tumors, Pearson Chi-square test was used.   Results: It was noted that 22 of the 100 cases were positive with a score of 3 or more. A significant association of nodal status with fascin (p value <0.05) was noted. Higher proportion of fascin positive tumors were node negative. There was an inverse correlation between ER/PR/HER2 status and fascin positivity. The corresponding p values for ER, PR and HER2 with fascin were <0.05. On the contrary 12(57.15%) of the 21 triple negative cases were fascin positive. The p value was <0.001 indicating a significant correlation between molecular subtypes and fascin expression. A more of the fascin positive tumors fell in the triple negative category.   Conclusion: Higher proportion of fascin positive cases in the node negative category, an inverse correlation between fascin expression and individual ER/PR, HER2 expression and larger number of fascin positive cases in the triple negative category. These findings point an association of fascin with aggressive breast carcinomas.