A high neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio and platelet-lymphocyte ratio are associated with a worse outcome in inflammatory breast cancer

Introduction

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is an uncommon, but aggressive form of breast cancer that accounts for a disproportionally high fraction of breast cancer related mortality. The aim of this study was to explore the peripheral immune response and the prognostic value of blood-based biomarkers, such as the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), in a large IBC cohort.

Patients & methods

We retrospectively identified 127 IBC patients and collected lab results from in-hospital medical records. The differential count of leukocytes was determined at the moment of diagnosis, before any therapeutic intervention. A cohort of early stage (n = 108), locally advanced (n = 74) and metastatic breast cancer patients (n = 41) served as a control population.

Results

The NLR was significantly higher in IBC compared to an early stage breast cancer cohort, but no difference between IBC patients and locally advanced breast cancer patients was noted. In the metastatic setting, there was also no significant difference between IBC and nIBC. However, a high NLR (>4.0) remained a significant predictor of worse outcome in IBC patients (HR: 0.49; 95% CI: 0.24–1.00; P = .05) and a lower platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) (≤210) correlated with a better disease-free survival (DFS) (HR: 0.51; 95% CI: 0.28–0.93; P = .03).

Conclusion

Patients with a high NLR (>4.0) have a worse overall prognosis in IBC, while the PLR correlated with relapse free survival (RFS). Since NLR and PLR were not specifically associated with IBC disease, they can be seen as markers of more extensive disease.

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There is no association between NLR or PLR and inflammatory breast cancer (IBC).

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IBC and non-inflammatory breast cancer elicit a similar peripheral immune response.

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A high neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is associated with a worse overall survival in IBC.

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A high platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) correlates with a worse disease-free survival in IBC.

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An elevated PLR or NLR should be seen as a marker of more extensive disease in IBC.

The rationale of opportunistic bilateral salpingectomies (OBS) during benign gynaecological and obstetric surgery: a consensus text of the Flemish Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (VVOG)

Ovarian cancer (OC), is a disease difficult to diagnose in an early stage implicating a poor prognosis. The 5-year overall survival in Belgium has not changed in the last 18 years and remains 44 %. There is no effective screening method (secondary prevention) to detect ovarian cancer at an early stage. Primary prevention of ovarian cancer came in the picture through the paradigm shift that the fallopian tube is often the origin of ovarian cancer and not the ovary itself. Opportunistic bilateral salpingectomy (OBS) during benign gynaecological and obstetric surgery might have the potential to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer by as much as 65 %. Bilateral risk-reducing salpingectomy during a benign procedure is feasible, safe, appears to have no impact on the ovarian function and seems to be cost effective. The key question is whether we should wait for a RCT or implement OBS directly in our daily practice. Guidelines regarding OBS within our societies are therefore urgently needed. Our recommendation is to inform all women without a child wish, undergoing a benign gynaecological or obstetrical surgical procedure about the pro's and the con's of OBS and advise a bilateral salpingectomy. Furthermore, there is an urgent need for a prospective registry of OBS. The present article is the consensus text of the Flemish Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (VVOG) regarding OBS.

Neoadjuvant endocrine treatment in early breast cancer: An overlooked alternative?

During the last decade neoadjuvant endocrine therapy (NET) has moved from being reserved for elderly and frail non-chemotherapy candidates to a primary systemic modality in selected patients with hormone sensitive breast cancer. Neoadjuvant hormonal treatment in patients with hormone receptor positive, HER-2 negative early breast cancer is proven to be an effective and safe option; it is associated with a higher rate of breast conserving surgery (BCS), may reduce the need for adjuvant chemotherapy and enables a delay of surgery for medical or practical reasons. Clinical responses range from 13% to 100% with at least 3 months of NET. Methods of assessing response should include MRI of the breast, particularly in lobular tumours. In studies comparing tamoxifen with aromatase inhibitors (AI), AI proved to be superior in terms of tumour response and rates of BCS. Change in Ki67 is accepted as a validated endpoint for comparing endocrine neoadjuvant agents. Levels of Ki67 during treatment are more closely related to long-term prognosis than pretreatment Ki67. Neoadjuvant endocrine therapy provides a unique opportunity for studies of endocrine responsiveness and the development of new experimental drugs combined with systemic hormonal treatment.

A phase II study of the combination of endocrine treatment and bortezomib in patients with endocrine-resistant metastatic breast cancer

The majority of patients with hormone receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer die from disease progression despite different types of anti-hormonal treatments. Preclinical studies have indicated that resistance to anti-hormonal therapies may be the result of an activated NF-κB signalling pathway in breast cancer. Bortezomib is a proteasome inhibitor that blocks the NF-κB pathway. Recent pharmacodynamic and pharmaco-kinetic xenograft studies have shown that drug exposure may be a crucial factor for the efficacy of bortezomib in solid tumours. The aim was to investigate whether the addition of bortezomib to anti-hormonal therapy would result in regained antitumour activity in patients with progressive and measurable disease being treated with an endocrine agent. Clinical benefit was defined as patients obtaining stable disease, partial response or complete response after 2 cycles, lasting for at least another five weeks. Bortezomib was administered on days 1, 8, 15 and 22 of a 5-week regimen (1.6 mg/m2). Eight patients received an aromatase inhibitor and bortezomib, while one received tamoxifen and bortezomib. There were 3 grade 3 gastrointestinal toxicities. Median time to treatment failure was 69 days (range, 35-140). Two out of the 9 patients had stable disease for more than 10 weeks. Despite an effective target inhibition, suggested in peripheral blood mononuclear cells and available tumour samples, no objective antitumour responses were observed. Addition of a proteasome inhibitor to anti-hormonal therapy resulted in a clinical benefit rate of 22% in a limited number of patients with endocrine resistant and progressive metastatic breast cancer. The demonstrated proteasome inhibition in tumour tissue provides evidence that the lack of clinical responses is not attributed to deficient drug exposure.

Abstract P3-02-10: Comparison of Circulating Tumour Cells in Peripheral and Central Venous Blood of Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer: A Pilot Study

Background: Enumeration of circulating tumour cells (CTC), as performed by the CellSearch System (Veridex, Raritan, NJ, USA), has prognostic significance in patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC). Questions remain on how these cells - if all - are capable to survive in the circulation and ultimately give rise to distant metastases. Experiments in mouse models have shown that CTC only appear transiently in the circulation after injection in the tail vein or left ventricle. Data on the discrete localisation of CTC in the blood stream and CTC kinetics in human breast cancer is still limited. The aim of this pilot study was to directly compare the amount of CTC measured in peripheral and central venous blood samples of patients with MBC in order to reveal possible differences. Methods: So far, we have included 18 patients with MBC presenting at our hospital with either primary metastatic (N=2) or progressive disease (N=16). Most patients suffered from diffuse metastatic involvement and were extensively pretreated. Clinically evident lung metastases were documented in 4/18 patients. Peripheral venous blood (PVB) - obtained from an antecubital vein - and central venous blood (CVB) samples - obtained from the subcutaneous port catheter - were drawn into CellSave Preservative tubes (Immunicon, Huntingdon Valley, PA) and processed in parallel using the CellSearch Circulating Tumor Cell Test (Veridex, Raritan, NJ, USA). With this test, CTC captured from 7.5 mL whole blood, are defined as EpCAM+, nuclear cells (DAPI+), expressing cytokeratins 8/18/19 and lacking CD45 expression.

Results: CTC were detected in both PVB and CVB samples of 16/18 patients. In 2 patients no CTC were detected, neither in PVB nor in CVB. In 16 patients with detectable CTC, the number of CTC was found to be significantly higher in CVB (median: 65; range: 3-4036) than in PVB (median: 45; range: 1-4013) samples (Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test, P=0.001). When analyzing samples parewise, the number of CTC in CVB was higher than the number of CTC in PVB in 15/16 patients, although marginally in 4 of 15 patients (median ratio CVB/PVB: 1.8; range: 1.0-3.1). Only 1 patient showed a higher number of CTC in PVB (absolute value: 49 CTC/7.5 mL blood) as compared to CVB (absolute value: 41 CTC/7.5 mL blood).

Conclusions: In this study, a substantial decrease in the number of CTC was observed between CVB and PVB of patients with MBC. This difference might be relevant in the clinical setting as a quantitative cut off in the number of CTC is used to distinguish between patients with good and worse prognosis. As hand metastases are most uncommon, the lungs are suggested to function as the main sieve, even in the absence of clinically overt lung metastases. However, further research in larger patient populations and - where feasible - including radial arterial blood sampling, is required in order to confirm these results and to investigate human CTC kinetics in depth.

Citation Information: Cancer Res 2010;70(24 Suppl):Abstract nr P3-02-10.

The VEGF pathway and the AKT/mTOR/p70S6K1 signalling pathway in human epithelial ovarian cancer

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A inhibitors exhibit unseen high responses and toxicity in recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer suggesting an important role for the VEGF/VEGFR pathway. We studied the correlation of VEGF signalling and AKT/mTOR signalling. Using a tissue microarray of clinical samples (N=86), tumour cell immunohistochemical staining of AKT/mTOR downstream targets, pS6 and p4E-BP1, together with tumour cell staining of VEGF-A and pVEGFR2 were semi-quantified. A correlation was found between the marker for VEGFR2 activation (pVEGFR2) and a downstream target of AKT/mTOR signalling (pS6) (R=0.29; P=0.002). Additional gene expression analysis in an independent cDNA microarray dataset (N=24) showed a negative correlation (R=−0.73, P<0.0001) between the RPS6 and the VEGFR2 gene, which is consistent as the gene expression and phosphorylation of S6 is inversely regulated. An activated tumour cell VEGFR2/AKT/mTOR pathway was associated with increased incidence of ascites (χ², P=0.002) and reduced overall survival of cisplatin–taxane-based patients with serous histology (N=32, log-rank test, P=0.04). These data propose that VEGF-A signalling acts on tumour cells as a stimulator of the AKT/mTOR pathway. Although VEGF-A inhibitors are classified as anti-angiogenic drugs, these data suggest that the working mechanism has an important additional modality of targeting the tumour cells directly.

Comparison of molecular determinants of angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis in lymph node metastases and in primary tumours of patients with breast cancer

Angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis are complex processes, driven by multiple factors. In primary breast tumours (PTs), VEGFA, -C and -D are the most important (lymph)angiogenic factors. The induction of lymphangiogenesis in axillary lymph node (LN) metastases of patients with breast cancer was described recently. To compare the molecular determinants of (lymph)angiogenesis in LN metastases and PTs of breast cancer patients, RNA was isolated from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections of a metastatically involved and uninvolved LN and the PT from 26 lymph node-positive patients. The expression of 12 (lymph)angiogenic markers was measured by qRT-PCR. Expression was correlated with tumour cell proliferation, angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis, quantified by tumour cell proliferation fraction (TCP%) and (lymphatic) endothelial cell proliferation fraction [(L)ECP%]. TCP%, ECP% and LECP% were assessed on immunohistochemical double stains for CD34/Ki-67 and D2-40/Ki-67, respectively. In involved LNs, the relative gene expression levels of PROX1 (p < 0.001) and FGF2 (p = 0.008) were decreased and the expression levels of VEGFA (p = 0.01) and PDGFB (p = 0.002) were increased compared to uninvolved LNs. The expression of most markers was increased in PTs compared to involved LNs. In metastatically involved LNs, the expression of VEGFA correlated with ECP% (r = 0.54, p = 0.009) and LECP% (r = 0.76, p < 0.001). In PTs, VEGFA correlated only with ECP% (r = 0.74, p < 0.001). VEGFD correlated with peritumoural LECP% (r = 0.61, p = 0.001) and with VEGFC (r = 0.78, p < 0.001). Linear regression analysis confirmed the expression of VEGFA as an independent predictor of ECP% in both PTs and LN metastases and of LECP% in LN metastases. The expression of VEGFD, but not of VEGFA, independently predicted peritumoural LECP% in PTs. Our results confirm existing data that, in PTs, angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis are respectively driven by VEGFA and VEGFD. In contrast, in LN metastases, both processes seem to be driven by VEGFA. Lymphangiogenesis in PTs and in LN metastases might thus be driven by different factors.

Treatment policy of neuroendocrine small cell cancer of the cervix

Small cell cancers of the cervix are very rare and aggressive tumours. It is difficult to manage these tumours. They are often diagnosed in an advanced stage and their prognosis is generally poor. There are no clinical trials, due to their rarity, that would suggest optimal treatment. The present report describes a patient with a neuroendocrine small cell cancer of the cervix Stage IB2 with a positive lymph node. The treatment consisted of radical hysterectomy and node dissection, adjuvant chemotherapy, chemoradiation and brachytherapy. Currently, after 52 months, the patient is well and free of disease. Since 1996, there has been a classification for neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) of the cervix in four categories (large cell, small cell, typical carcinoid and atypical carcinoid). The aggressive behaviour of neuroendocrine small cell cancer is demonstrated by the high percentage of early lymphatic node and vessel invasion (68 and 90%). Almost half of the patients with Stage I and II will recur with an estimated 5-year survival from 14% to a maximum of 55%. Multimodal therapy for these tumours appears to give good response but often implies severe side-effects.