Correlations of TCM syndrome type and VEGF-C expression before breast cancer surgery with prognosis

WANG Yuan-yuan; WU Pei-chun; HUANG Ying; YAO Xiao-dong; LIU Chun-peng; WU Xuan; WANG Shao-hong

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1001-9448.2019.05.007

Abstract：Objective To investigate the prognostic value of preoperative TCM syndromes on breast cancer and VEGF-C expression in different TCM syndromes. Methods According to the clinical pathological features and follow-up data, 91 cases of breast cancer patients with different preoperative TCM syndromes were grouped based on age, maximum of tumor diameter, ER expression, molecular type, lymph nodes metastasis, differentiation and TNM stage. The patients were classified into liver depression and sputum blocking, disorder of chong ren meridian, healthy qi deficiency and exuberance of pathogenic qi according to tongue coating, pulse and mammary gland, local and systemic symptoms. VEGF-C was detected by immunohistochemistry. Results VEGF-C expression in cancer tissue was significantly different among different types of TCM syndromes (P＜0.05). The recurrence rate of breast cancer was significantly correlated with molecular type, lymph node metastasis, staging, differentiation and TCM classification (P＜0.05). Log-rank test on Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed significant differences in disease-free survival among TCM syndromes, TNM stages, molecular types, and tumor differentiations (P＜0.05). Cox multivariate analysis showed that TCM syndrome type, molecular type and maximum tumor diameter were independent prognostic factors. Conclusion It is valuable to forecasting prognosis according to the three types of liver depression and sputum blocking, disorder of chong ren meridian, healthy qi deficiency and exuberance of pathogenic qi before operation. The prognosis of healthy qi deficiency and exuberance of pathogenic qi is the worst and with higher lymph node metastasis.