Baseline sLAG-3 levels in Caucasian and African-American breast cancer patients

Helen Swede ¹, Sharif M Ridwan ², Jillian Strandberg ²

⁰Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Connecticut Health, Farmington, CT, USA.

Breast Cancer Research and Treatment +

|

September 4, 2024

View abstract on PubMed

Summary

African-American breast cancer patients show lower soluble LAG-3 (sLAG-3) levels before treatment. This finding, independent of triple-negative breast cancer status, suggests sLAG-3 may play a role in racial disparities in breast cancer outcomes.

Area Of Science

Oncology
Immunology
Health Disparities

Background

African-Americans (AA) with breast cancer experience worse survival rates compared to other racial/ethnic groups.
Soluble LAG-3 (sLAG-3), a marker of the LAG-3 immune checkpoint receptor, is unstudied in breast cancer outcome disparities.
Previous research indicates lower baseline sLAG-3 levels are associated with poorer outcomes.

Purpose Of The Study

To investigate pre-treatment soluble LAG-3 (sLAG-3) levels in African-American (AA) versus Caucasian breast cancer patients.
To explore the association of sLAG-3 with circulating cytokines in different racial groups.
To determine if sLAG-3 levels differ in patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

Main Methods

A cross-sectional study measured sLAG-3 levels (ELISA pg/ml) in pre-treatment blood samples from 95 primary breast cancer patients (58 Caucasian, 37 AA).
Non-parametric Mann-Whitney u-Test was used for independent samples comparison.
Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to assess the relationship between sLAG-3 and circulating cytokines, stratified by race.

Main Results

Mean sLAG-3 levels were significantly lower in AA patients compared to Caucasian patients (1377.6 vs 3690.3, P=.002).
Lower sLAG-3 levels were also observed in patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) (P=.02).
Even after excluding TNBC patients, AA patients showed lower sLAG-3 levels than Caucasian patients (1937.4 vs 4182.4, P=.06).
In Caucasian patients, sLAG-3 correlated with IL-6, IL-8, and IL-10. In AA patients, sLAG-3 correlated only with IL-6.

Conclusions

This study is the first to report potentially lower pre-treatment sLAG-3 levels in African-American breast cancer patients, irrespective of TNBC status.
Reduced co-expression of sLAG-3 with circulating cytokines was observed in AA patients.
The precise role and prognostic significance of sLAG-3 in racial disparities in breast cancer outcomes require further investigation.

Keywords:

Breast cancer Cancer immunotherapy LAG-3 Survival disparities sLAG-3

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