Copyright
©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
A biomarker study in Peruvian males with breast cancer
Carlos A Castaneda, Miluska Castillo, Luis A Bernabe, Joselyn Sanchez, Ebert Torres, Nancy Suarez, Katherine Tello, Hugo Fuentes, Jorge Dunstan, Miguel De La Cruz, Jose Manuel Cotrina, Julio Abugattas, Henry Guerra, Henry L Gomez
Carlos A Castaneda, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universidad Cientifica del Sur, Lima 15067, Peru
Carlos A Castaneda, Hugo Fuentes, Henry L Gomez, Department of Medical Oncology, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Neoplasicas, Lima 15038, Peru
Miluska Castillo, Luis A Bernabe, Joselyn Sanchez, Nancy Suarez, Katherine Tello, Department of Research, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Neoplasicas, Lima 15038, Peru
Ebert Torres, Henry Guerra, Department of Pathology, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Neoplasicas, Lima 15038, Peru
Jorge Dunstan, Miguel De La Cruz, Jose Manuel Cotrina, Julio Abugattas, Department of Breast Cancer Surgery, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Neoplasicas, Lima 15038, Peru
Author contributions: Castaneda CA, Gomez H and Castillo M contributed to the conception, design of the study, performed data analysis and interpretation; Bernabe LA, Sanchez J, Torres E, Suarez N, Tello K and Guerra H performed data acquisition, as well as providing technical support; Fuentes H, Dunstan J, De La Cruz M, Cotrina JM and Abugattas J provided administrative and material support; all authors drafted the article, made critical revisions related to the intellectual content of the manuscript and approved the final version of the article to be published.
Supported by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innovacion Tecnologica, No. 198-2015-FONDECYT.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Neoplasicas Institutional Review Board. Personal and filiation data including identity of every patient was protected with an added code in the excel table. It is a retrospective case series that does not have any not activity or contact with the patients.
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: We have no financial relationships to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See:
http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Corresponding author: Carlos A Castaneda, MD, MSc, Associate Research Scientist, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universidad Cientifica del Sur, Carr. Panamericana Sur 19, Villa El Salvador, Lima 15067, Peru. carloscastanedaaltamirano@yahoo.com
Received: March 13, 2021
Peer-review started: March 13, 2021
First decision: June 7, 2021
Revised: June 25, 2021
Accepted: September 8, 2021
Article in press: September 8, 2021
Published online: October 24, 2021
Processing time: 222 Days and 17.7 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
Information about clinicopathological features associated with treatment response and prognosis has been extensively described for female breast cancer, and differences regarding races has been described. Breast cancer in males is much less frequent, has important clinicopathological differences and is less studied than their female breast cancer counterpart.
Research motivation
Discussion and new information about features and biomarkers of Breast cancer (BC) in males have been included in recent cancer-related meetings, and more than 30000 articles have been published in the last two years. However, very few of them have evaluated a South American population.
Research objectives
To describe rates of currently accepted biomarkers for prognosis and for prediction of treatment response in Peruvian males with BC.
Research methods
Clinical files and tumor slides were reviewed. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, mismatch repair proteins (MMR), PIK3CA gene mutations, estrogen (ER) and, androgen receptors (AR) were prospectively evaluated in available paraffin material.
Research results
In our series of 54 Peruvian males with invasive breast cancer, we found that most cases were Luminal-A phenotype (60%), ER-positive (85.7%), AR-positive (85.3%), and the median of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes was 10%. MMR loss was found in 15.4% and PIK3CA mutation (H1047R) in 14.3% (all in the Luminal-A group). MMR loss was associated with AR-negative (P = 0.018). Longer overall survival was associated with early stages (P < 0.001) and lower grade (P = 0.006).
Research conclusions
Most breast cancer tumors in Peruvian males are ER and AR-positive, and MMR loss and PIK3CA mutations are infrequent. MMR loss was associated with hormone receptor-negative.
Research perspectives
Biomarkers identified for women with breast cancer need to be validated for the male counterpart. Research in race disparities needs to be extended also for males of non-Caucasian races. Association between MMR loss and activity of AR pathways requires further evaluation.
