Diagnostic and prognostic relevance of MMP-11 expression in the stroma adjacent to invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast

Abstract

BackgroundMatrix metalloproteinase 11 (MMP-11) is a matrix degrading enzyme known to be involved in the remodeling of extracellular matrix proteins. This enzyme recently has been reported to play a key role in tumor progression and results in poor clinical outcomes for several different types of tumors.MethodsA total of 192 patients diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma between 2000 and 2005 were included in this study. MMP-11 expression in tumors and stromal fibroblast-like cells was analyzed by immunohistochemical staining on a tissue microarray. Subsequently, evaluation of the associations between MMP-11 expression and clinicopathological characteristics was performed.ResultsMMP-11 expression of stromal fibroblast-like cells was correlated with prognostic factors, including tumor size, metastasis, histological grade, central tumor fibrosis, p53 expression, and luminal A subtype and was linked to therapeutic markers, such as ER and HER2 (all p < 0.05). There was a significant relationship between worse overall survival and MMP-11 expression in both tumors and stromal fibroblast-like cells (all p < 0.05). In multivariate analysis, MMP-11 expression of stromal fibroblast-like cells was still significantly associated with poor prognosis (p = 0.043).ConclusionsMMP-11 expression was significantly related to clinicopathological parameters, which may be essential to the prediction of disease outcome in patients with invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast.