The aim of the study was to assess the value of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) measurements in breast cancer patients with respect to recognized clinicopathological prognostic factors. The study was conducted in 87 women with histologically confirmed breast cancer who underwent surgical treatment and 37 healthy women. Vascular endothelial growth factor concentration levels in the blood samples of patients were correlated with the size of the primary tumor, lymph nodes in the armpit, cancer stage, histological type, grading, multifocality, status of estrogen and progesterone receptors and HER-2 protein expression. Statistical analysis did not show any correlation between concentrations of VEGF and any of the selected parameters. The comparison of VEGF concentrations showed a slightly raised level of VEGF in women with the disease as opposed to the healthy subjects but the differences were not statistically significant (p = 0.472). Similar results were obtained for marker CEA (p = 0.09), while the level of Ca 15-3 in both groups differed significantly (p < 0.001) reaching higher values in the patients with diagnosed breast cancer. Vascular endothelial growth factor concentrations in breast cancer patients do not correlate with recognized clinicopathological prognostic factors and CEA and Ca 15-3 markers, which does not preclude the potential role of VEGF as an independent prognostic factor.

For descriptive purposes, continuous variables were summarized as arithmetic mean and standard deviation (SD), whereas categorical variables were expressed as frequencies and proportions. The Pearson's chi-square and Wilcoxon tests were used for assessing the statistical significance of clinical parameters. The Kaplan-Meier method used to estimate survival curves of individual variables using the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel log-rank test.Results: The significant factors for gender comparisons were age (p ¼ 0.0004, Welch's t test; p <0.0001), and percentage of estrogen receptors (p ¼ 0.0030, Welch's t test; p ¼ 0.0002). The most common clinical stages in men (n ¼ 30) were IIIB (23.3%), IIB (20%) and IIA (16.6%), while in women (n ¼ 2999) the most frequent stages were I (21.2%), IIA (21.3%) and IIIA (15.1%). The tumor grade (p ¼ 0.1792), lymphovascular permeation (p ¼ 0.9115, chi-square test), the proportions of patients treated with adjuvant chemotherapy (p ¼ 0.1193, Pearson's chi-square test) were similar in both groups. Median progression-free survival was 24.8 months (95% CI: 12.5 e 59.35) in males and in females 54.04 months (95% CI: 40.97 e 68.99) (p ¼ 0.0026), and median overall survival was 35.38 months (95% CI: 20.06 e 58.88) in males and in females 60.02 months (95% CI: 48 e 75.93) (p ¼ 0.0001); the average value of time to progression and overall survival is almost double for women compared to men.Conclusions: In our study, male breast cancer were diagnosed in more proportion locally advanced clinical stages compared to the distribution of clinical stages in women who were diagnosed in earlier stages, the disease-free survival and overall survival were lower in men than in the female group. Male breast cancer patients have a worse survival outcome than female patients. Male breast cancer patients have lower survival compared to the female patients.Legal entity responsible for the study: The authors.

presented an event of interest for DDFS analyses. Five-year DDFS was 91,6%. Predictors for DDFS in univariate analysis were cT stage (c2¼45.408, p<0.001), AJCC Anatomic Stage Groups (c2¼ 110,784, p<0.001), and AJCC Clinical Prognostic Stage Groups (c2¼ 22,868, p¼0.001). In the multivariate analyse only AJCC anatomic stage groups retained significative results for DDFS (p<0,001).Conclusions: In our study, after pCR in breast cancer patients treated with NACT, only AJCC anatomic stage groups was significant for DDFS in the multivariate analyse. In this special population, these results emphasize the importance of meticulous staging at diagnosis and suggest the possibility of personalised follow-up and modulated adjuvant treatment after surgery based on AJCC anatomic stage groups.Legal entity responsible for the study: The authors.

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