[Correlation between accumulation of (99m)Tc-MIBI in breast cancer or benign lesion, cell proliferation and angiogenesis].

OBJECTIVE

To study the accumulation of (99m)Tc-MIBI in breast cancer or benign lesions and the correlation between cell proliferation and angiogenesis.

METHODS

(99m)Tc-MIBI positive imaging was performed on 38 patients with palpable breast mass. A ratio of radioactivity value of mass to normal tissue was assessed 10 minutes after injection of (99m)Tc-MIBI in posterior oblique view. Cell proliferation and angiogenesis were assessed by immunostaining of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and ulex europaeus I lectin (UEA- I). Data were analyzed by T-test, correlation and regression analysis.

RESULTS

We studied 17 true-positive, 5 false-negative, 15 true-negative, and 1 false positive patients (chi(2) = 18.74, P < 0.001). In patients with positive (99m)Tc-MIBI scans, the diameter of mass (4.00 +/- 1.95 cm) was larger and the percentage of PCNA positive cell (74.13% +/- 13.84%) was significantly higher than that in patients with negative scans (2.14 +/- 1.00 cm, 43.76% +/- 20.78%, P < 0.01). No significant evidence of difference between the number of angiogenic vessels of the two groups (181.3 +/- 71.7, 138.3 +/- 103.0, P = 0.141). The accumulation of (99m)Tc-MIBI was most strongly correlated with the percentage of PCNA positive cell (r = 0.56, P = 0.000), but was not related to the number of vessels (r = 0.31, P = 0.056). In stepwise regression analysis, the variance number of vessels was not included in the model.

CONCLUSIONS

The accumulation of (99m)Tc-MIBI in breast cancer is an indicator of cell proliferation, and no evident relationship with angiogenesis has been found.