Relationship between expressions of metallothioneins and CD_(44)V_6 and prognosis in breast carcinoma

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship between the expressions of MT and CD_(44)V_6 and prognosis in breast carcinoma, and to study the possible relationship between MT and CD_(44)V_6.METHODS:The expressions of MT and CD_(44)V_6 in 76 cases of breast carcinoma was studied with SP immunohistochemical method. RESULTS: Positive rate of MT was 78.9% and CD_(44)V_6 75.0%. There was no statistically significant difference between them, P0.05. There were 53 patients who expressed both MT and CD_(44)V_6, and the correlative coefficient was 0.596, P0.001. MT and CD_(44)V_6 correlated closely with the lymph node metastasis. There was no relationship between the expression and the tumor size. The expression of MT was higher than that of CD_(44)V_6 in benign breast tumor tissue.CONCLUSIONS:MT and CD_(44)V_6 can be taken as important prognosis markers, and the combinated detections of them can improve the accuracy in judging the prognosis of breast cancinoma.