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Currently, there are few studies exploring the expression of Caveolin-1 (CAV-1) in breast cancer tissues and its clinicopathological significance using immunohistochemistry (IHC) technology. This study detected the expression of CAV-1 in 300 cases of invasive breast cancer paraffin tissues through IHC, and analyzed the relationship between CAV-1 expression and the clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of breast cancer patients. Our results showed that the positivity rate of CAV-1 in breast cancer tissues was 10.0% (30/300), significantly higher than that in normal breast tissues (0.0%, 0/58) ( P = 0.024). CAV-1 expression was higher in breast cancer with larger tumors, higher tumor grade, ER negative, PR negative, HER2 negative, higher Ki-67 index, and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) molecular subtype (all P 0.05); however, the positivity rate of CAV-1 in breast cancer without axillary lymph node metastasis (13.6%, 21/154) was significantly higher than that in patients with axillary lymph node metastasis (4.9%, 7/143) ( P = 0.010). In multiple logistic regression analysis, the independent predictor of CAV-1 expression in breast cancer was TNBC status (odds ratio = 32.099; 95% confidence interval: 9.341–110.302; P 0.001). We further analyzed the value of CAV-1 in distinguishing between TNBC and non-TNBC, the results showed that the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of CAV-1 positive prediction for TNBC were 32.9%, 98.6%, 90.0%, and 79.5%, respectively. Regardless of all breast cancer or TNBC patients, no clear relationship was observed between patient prognosis and CAV-1 expression. We suggest that CAV-1 expression is significantly upregulated in TNBC, with potential clinical value for distinguishing between TNBC and non-TNBC.
Wang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.