D Mafinezhad - Surgical Oncology Research Center, Mashhad university of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
M Asadi - Surgical Oncology Research Center, Mashhad university of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
S Shahidsales - Cancer Research Center, School Of Medicine, Mashhad University Of Medical Sciences, Mashhad , Iran
SA Aledavood - Cancer Research Center, School Of Medicine, Mashhad University Of Medical Sciences, Mashhad , Iran

Background: Breast cancer is the first leading cause of cancer related death in women. Ki-67 is being used for evaluation of the prognosis of breast cancer patients. The aim of current study was to explore the association of the involvement of axillary lymph nodes status with the expression of Ki-67 in patients with breast cancer. Methods & patients: 449 patients were enrolled followed by evaluation of the association of Ki67 levels with demographic, pathologic and survival data of patients using Chi-square, logistic regression models, student T-test and Mann-Whitney.Results: We observed a significant relationship between the expression level of Ki-67 and stage of tumor (P=0.012), positive progesterone receptor (P=0.003), and subtype pathologic features, (P˂0.05). Also a significant difference was detected between Her2 and expression level of Ki-67, (P=0.015). Survival analysis showed the association for Ki-67 (P=0.02), age (P=0.005), stage of tumor (P˂0.05), lymph node involvement (P=0.001) and the Her2, (P=0.024) with clinical outcome (e.g., OS or DFS) of breast cancer patients.Conclusion: Our data demonstrated that the overexpression of Ki-67 was associated with large tumors, progesterone, and stage of tumor but it was not related with lymph node involvement.

Breast cancer, Ki-67, Lymph node involvement