Blood levels of growth and progression factors in patients with locally advanced breast cancer during neoadjuvant chemotherapy

Purpose of the study. An analysis of blood levels of TGF-β, TGFR2, TNF-α, TNF-αR1, TNF-αR2, CD44 and MMP9 in patients with various biological subtypes of breast cancer receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
Materials and methods. This article presents an analysis of levels of growth and progression factors (TGF-β, TGFR2, TNF-α, TNF-αR1, TNF-αR2, CD44 and MMP9) in the blood of 162 patients with various biological subtypes of locally advanced breast cancer receiving 8 cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
Results. Levels of TGF-β, TGFR2, TNF, TNF-α, TNFR1, TNFR2, CD44, MMP9 in patients with all BC subtypes were high before the treatment. After chemotherapy cycles, the values decreased statistically significantly in all BC subtypes: CD44 decreased by 25.2 %, 30 % and 54.7 % in luminal A, luminal B and TNBC, respectively; TNFα– by 26.2 %, 48.3 % and 50.8 %, respectively; TNFα-R1 – by 52.1 %, 39.2 % and 50.3 % respectively; TNFα-R2 – by 31.7 %, 32.8 % and 41.9 % respectively; MMP9 – 35.3 %, 32.6 % and 43.3 % respectively.
Conclusions. We identified a combination of growth and progression factors which determines the chemotherapy sensitivity and resistance in all subtypes of breast cancer; so, a decline in the levels of TGF-β, TNFα, MMP9 and CD44 after neoadjuvant chemotherapy predicts further remission for at least 3 years. On the contrary, stabilization or an increase of these indicators leads to the early tumor progression.

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