Abstract:Objective To study the micrometastasis in peripheral blood, lymph node and bone marrow in patients with breast cancer and the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy on bone marrow micrometastasis.
Methods RTPCR technique was used to simultaneously detect the micrometastasis in peripheral blood, lymph node and bone marrow in 69 patients with operable breast cancer, and the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy on bone marrow micrometastasis was also investigated.
Results The positivity of bone marrow micrometastasis tested by RTPCR in breast cancer patients was 34.8%. The circulating tumor cells were found in 11 patients (15.9%). Lymph node metastasis was positive in 35 cases, out of the 35 nodepositive cases, 32 cases(91.4%) were lymph node micrometastasis, out of the 34 nodenegative cases, eight cases(23.5%) were lymph node micrometastasis. Seven of 24 cases(29.2%) of bone marrow micrometastasis positive patients became negative after receiving six cycles of CAF adjuvant chemotherapy.
Conclusions Detection of CK19mRNA by RTPCR is a sensitive and specific method of assessing micrometastasis in patients with breast cancer. Compared with the detection of bone marrow micrometastasis , the technique to detect the micrometastasis in peripheral blood is less sensitive or specific. The detection of bone marrow micrometastasis is a sensitive index to assess the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy.