Grb14 as an independent good prognosis factor for breast cancer patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy

Growth factor receptor-binding protein 14, a new member of noncatalytic adaptor proteins family, has been shown to be upregulated in breast cancer. We investigated the prognostic value of growth factor receptor-binding protein 14 expression in breast cancer patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Primary breast cancer specimens were taken from locally advanced breast cancer patients in a Phase II clinical trial of neoadjuvant chemotherapy and the expression pattern of growth factor receptor-binding protein 14 was determined by immunohistochemistry. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression model were used to assess disease-free and overall survival, according to the expression of growth factor receptor-binding protein 14 in tumor cells.

Our result showed that growth factor receptor-binding protein 14 was highly expressed in 23.1% of breast cancer sections, and high expression of growth factor receptor-binding protein 14 was significantly associated with better disease-free (P = 0.016, hazard ratio 0.07, 95% confidence interval 0.06-0.08) and overall survival (P = 0.004, hazard ratio 0.02, 95% confidence interval 0.02-0.03), compared with the low-expression group. Multivariate analysis indicated that high expression of growth factor receptor-binding protein 14 was an independent good prognostic factor for both disease-free (P = 0.04, hazard ratio 0.37, 95% confidence interval 0.14-0.98) and overall survival (P = 0.03, hazard ratio 0.11, 95% confidence interval 0.10-0.82).

High expression of growth factor receptor-binding protein 14 in breast cancer cells may help to identify low-risk patients for additional therapies after neoadjuvant chemotherapy.