Exploring associations between breast tumor inflammatory gene expression and mammographic calcifications and masses...

Mammography is important for breast cancer detection, and calcifications and masses are the most common mammographic features. In this exploratory study, we evaluated the association between these findings and immune gene expression to determine the role that inflammation may play in mass- or calcification-associated breast cancers. This study included 205 breast cancer patients in the Carolina Breast Cancer Study and the Carolina Mammography Registry. Hierarchical clustering and logistic regression were used to examine associations between radiologist-reported imaging features and tumor RNA expression of 48 immune-related genes. The Bonferroni correction adjusted for multiple comparisons. There were statistically significant associations between CCL7 and calcifications (odd ratio [OR] = 0.52, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.35, 0.75) and between CCL7 and the presence of a mass (OR = 1.48 95% CI = 1.18, 1.88). Furthermore, lower expression of genes with anti-inflammatory function was associated with calcifications (p = 0.04), but not masses. However, neither mammographic masses nor calcifications were associated with global gene expression patterns using hierarchical clustering. This analysis of bulk immune markers suggests plausible associations between immune alterations and mammographic findings. Larger studies and immunoprofiling approaches sensitive to subtle variation should be conducted to identify targetable imaging characteristics, which alongside immunotherapeutic advances, may facilitate targeted breast cancer treatment.