Effect of neoadjuvant chemotherapy with docetaxel and epirubicin on Ki-67 expression in patients with breast cancer

FENG Yu; ZHAO Xia; LYU Shuzhen; MU Ying; WANG Dandan; LI Yanping

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-266X.2016.24.024

Abstract：Objective To investigate the effect of neoadjuvant chemotherapy with epirubicin and docetaxel on Ki -67 expression in patients with breast cancer and its significance .Methods Eighty-six cases of patients with breast cancer treated with breast cancer radical surgery were selected in this study , epirubicin combined with docetaxel neoadjuvant chemotherapy were carried out before operation .Quantitative PCR and Western blotting were used to detect the expression of Ki-67 mRNA and protein before and after chemotherapy .After 5-year follow-up, we used Kaplan-meire survival curve method to analyze disease-free survival ( DFS) and overall survival ( OS) , used Cox proportional hazard regression model to analyze the relationship between DFS , OS and Ki-67 expression .Results The expression of Ki-67 mRNA and Ki-67 pro-tein in the breast cancer after chemotherapy were lower than that before chemotherapy (all P<0.05).According to Ki-67 mRNA expression changes , patients were further divided into higher change group ( down-regulation of Ki-67 mRNA was more than or equal to 10%, 57 cases) and lower change group (Ki-67 mRNA reduced less than 10%, 39 cases).DFS of the two groups (higher and lower changes group respectively ) was 36, 22 months and OS was 37, 45 months, and there were significant differences between the two groups (all P<0.01).Ki-67 was the an independent influencing factor for DFS and OS in patients with breast cancer (HR were 1.807, 1.768, all P<0.05).Conclusion Epirubicin and docetax-el neoadjuvant chemotherapy can down-regulate the expression of Ki-67 in tumor tissues of patients with breast cancer , and the high expression of Ki-67 is related to the poor prognosis .