A study on the vascular proliferation in tissues around the tumor in breast cancer

In order to study the vascular proliferation in human breast cancer, blood vessels were counted, per square millimeter, in the tissue immediately around tumors. Mastectomized specimens of 84 patients with breast cancer and specimens from 10 patients with benign mammary diseases were stained by hematoxylin eosin and, where required, by the avidin biotin peroxidase complex method for laminin staining. The vascular density around the breast cancer tissue was 20.35 +/- 8.40/mm2, which was significantly higher than the value of 13.44 +/- 5.85/mm2 for noncancerous mammary tissues (p less than 0.001) or the value of 12.65 +/- 4.12/mm2 for benign mammary disease tissues (p less than 0.01). Among the breast cancers, noninvasive carcinoma had a higher vascular density (28.44 +/- 6.15/mm2) than invasive carcinoma (19.73 +/- 8.22/mm2, p less than 0.02). According to the Japan Mammary Cancer Society Classification of invasive ductal carcinoma, vascularity was higher in the papillotubular type of cancer than in the solid-tubular or scirrhous types of cancer (p less than 0.02), although the papillotubular type had the lowest rate of nodal metastasis and vascular invasion as compared with the scirrhous and solid-tubular types. The vascular density around the tumors did not change in association with an increase in tumor size and it was suggested that blood vessels around a tumor would increase almost in proportion to the square of the tumor diameter.