(: MVD) is the quantification method of various aspects of tumor vasculature that indicates angiogenic activity. This study aims to analyze the correlation between MVD to the expression of VEGFRs on breast cancer tissue.
Materials and Method: A total of 60 N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU)-induced breast carcinomas in rats were suppressed by using antiangiogenic drugs. The rats were then sacrificed, and the tumor was fixed in 10% formalin, paraffin embedded, and immunohistochemistry stained using VEGFRs and CD34.
Result: One-way ANOVA test showed a significant difference in all markers that have been used (P < 0.05) on MNU-breast tumor treated with rapamycin (M= 90.1664, SD= 7.4487), PF4 (M= 93.7946, SD= 7.1303) and rapamycin + PF4 (M= 93.6990, SD= 1.8432). We obtained a significant reduction of MVD count on breast carcinoma for rapamycin group (M= 25.6786, SD= 9.7075) and rapamycin + PF4 group (M= 30.5250, SD= 13.6928) while PF4 group (M=47.7985, SD=4.8892) showed slightly increase compared to control (M= 45.1875, SD= 4.4786). There was a moderately strong, positive correlation between angiogenic markers; Flt-1 (r= 0.544, n=60, P < 0.005) and Flt-4 (r= 0.555, n= 60, P < 0.005) while Flk-1 (r= 0.797, n= 60, P < 0.005) showed a strong, positive correlation with MVD.
Conclusion: MVD was strongly correlated to the VEGFRs expression on breast carcinoma.
METHODS: Thirty-two female Sprague Dawley rats at age 21-days old were administered intraperitoneally with N-Methyl-N-Nitroso Urea (NMU), dosed at 70mg/kg body weight. The rats were divided into 4 groups; Group 1 (Control, n=8), Group 2 (Sirolimus, n=8), Group 3 (Sunitinib, n=8) and Group 4 (Sirolimus+Sunitinib, n=8), being treated twice when the tumor reached the size of 14.5±0.5 mm and subsequently sacrificed after 5 days. The protein expressions of ER, PgR and HER2/neu of the tumor tissues were evaluated by using immunohistochemistry analysis.
RESULTS: Treatment with sirolimus alone lowered expressions of ER and PgR of breast cancer and reduced tumor size. There was no significant difference of ER and PgR expressions between control and sunitinib treated tumor. Sunitinib treated tumors reduce in diameter after the first treatment, however the diameter increases after the second treatment. Histologically, sunitinib treated tumor did not show any aggressive invasive carcinoma of no special type (NST) histological subtypes. In addition, all NMU-induced tumors are HER2/neu-negative scoring.
CONCLUSION: Sirolimus is neither synergistic nor additive with sunitinib for breast cancer treatment.
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