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Microvessel quantitation in intraductal and early invasive breast carcinomas
A Santinelli1, M Baccarini, P Colanzi
1Institute of Pathological Anatomy and Histopathology, School of Medicine, University of Ancona, Italy. anpat@popcsi.unian.it
Objective:
To study the angiogenic process in intraductal carcinoma of the breast, with and without a small focus of stromal infiltration, and to compare the microvessel density between the in situ phase and the early infiltration phases of breast cancer.
Study Design:
Microvessel density (number of microvessels per square millimeter of neoplasia) was quantitatively evaluated on anti-factor VIII-immunostained histologic sections obtained from 10 ductal carcinomas in situ (DCIS) (category A), 22 DCIS with a small focus of stromal infiltration (category B), 10 microinvasive carcinomas (category C), 12 T1a carcinomas (category D) and 20 T1b carcinomas (category E).
Results:
The five categories of lesion had different values for microvessel density (P = .0017). Category A had microvessel density lower than category B (P = .0005). Category B had microvessel density higher than categories C, D and E (P = .0028, .0133 and .0033, respectively).
Conclusion:
Microvessel density seems to be a feature related to each crucial step in the early phases of neoplastic progression.