Prognostic value of vascular density and cell proliferation in breast cancer patients

We measured microvessel density and cell proliferation index in 84 breast cancers using survival analysis to find out their prognostic value. Immunohistochemistry was applied using antibody to factor VIII-related antigen as a marker for microvessels and MIB-1 antibody to stain proliferating cells. We were not able to show any difference in survival with a mean follow-up of 10.3 years between patients with high and low microvessel count or cell proliferation index. Vascular density did not correlate with the cell proliferation rate (p = 0.4). However, patient age correlated negatively with the cell proliferation index of the tumor (p = 0.0009). There was no significant difference both in microvessel count and in cell proliferation between patients with lymph node metastasis and node negative patients. This result questions the usefulness of vascular density and cell proliferation rate as prognostic markers in breast cancer.