| Summary: | Background: Metastasis of breast carcinoma, which
occurs primarily through the lymphatic pathway, begins
with tumor invasion into lymphatic vessels, then toward
lymph nodes, and subsequently to distant organs. Lymph
node metastasis is a strong prognostic factor in breast
cancer. Tumor associated macrophages (TAMs) are the
main inflammatory cells in carcinoma. In breast
carcinoma, the protumoral characters of TAMs is more
dominant than the antitumoral ones. The role of TAMs in
lymph node metastasis in breast carcinoma remains
unclear.
Objective: To study the relationship between amount of
TAMs and lymph node status in breast carcinoma.
Method: 46 paraffin blocks of invasive ductal carcinoma
of the breast from Sardjito Hospital Yogyakarta were
observed. Sampels were stained immunohistochemically by
CD68 monoclonal antibody. CD68 expression was assessed
from amount of TAMs whose cytoplasm expressed CD68
within 5 hot spot areas. TAMs was grouped into high and
low, based on median value as cut-off. Lymph node
status was grouped into positive and negative. The
relationship between TAMs and lymph node status was
analyzed by Chi-Square test.
Result: TAMs cut-off point was 48,5. Frequency of high
TAMs: 50%, low TAMs: 50%. Frequency of samples with
positive lymph node: 65% and negative lymph node: 35%.
There was no significant relationship between amount of
TAMs and lymph node status (p=0,063). Nevertheless,
many samples with high amount of TAMs were found in
carcinoma with lymph node metastasis.
Conclusion: In this study, the amount of TAMs had no
relationship with lymph node status in breast
carcinoma.
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