MCM6 versus Ki-67 in diagnosis of luminal molecular subtypes of breast cancers

• Published in: Diagnostic pathology 2022-02, Vol.17 (1), p.24-24, Article 24
• Main Authors: Sadeghian, Dorsay, Saffar, Hana, Mahdavi Sharif, Pouya, Soleimani, Vahid, Jahanbin, Behnaz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analysis; Biomarkers; Biomarkers, Tumor - metabolism; Brain cancer; Breast cancer; Breast Neoplasms - genetics; Cancer therapies; Cell cycle; Cloning; Cross-Sectional Studies; Epidermal growth factor; ErbB-2 protein; Female; Growth factors; Humans; Information retrieval; Ki-67 Antigen - metabolism; Ki67; Luminal a; Luminal B; MCM6; Medical prognosis; Minichromosome Maintenance Complex Component 6; Monoclonal antibodies; Pleomorphism; Prognosis; Proteins; Receptor, ErbB-2 - metabolism; Receptors; Receptors, Progesterone - metabolism; Retrospective Studies; Statistical analysis; Subgroups; Survival analysis; Tumors
• ISSN: 1746-1596; 1746-1596
• DOI: 10.1186/s13000-022-01209-4

Currently, breast cancers are divided into four major molecular subtypes. The distinction between the luminal A and luminal B subtypes is mainly based on the cellular proliferation indices and is assessed by the Ki-67 scoring. Due to the limitations in the assessment and expression of Ki-67, we hypothesized that minichromosome maintenance protein 6 (MCM6) might be taken as a surrogate marker to differentiate molecular subtypes and aid in more precise grading of tumors. We performed a retrospective, cross-sectional study on 124 samples of breast cancer and 40 samples of normal breast tissue. Relevant clinical information was retrieved from the Cancer Institute database. MCM6 could discriminate between various categories of histologic grades, tubule formation, mitotic indices, and nuclear pleomorphism (P = 0.002 for tubule formation and P