Comparative, Molecular, Immunohistochemical and Tissue Microarray Study on Iraqi and Italian Breast Cancer Patients

Breast cancer is the most common cancer of women worldwide. It is a heterogeneous disease. The incidence rate of this disease increased in the last years in Iraq. The current study was conducted to study the immunohistochemical and molecular parameters for the breast tumors by using tissue microarray (TMA) technique on Iraqi and Italian patients with
breast carcinoma. Histopathological data for the patients were obtained. Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples were used in this study. Three TMAs recipient blocks were designed and constructed for a first time Iraqi samples. Fifty-five Iraqi breast cancer cases used as the first TMA block; thirty Italian breast cancer cases were used to construct the second TMA block and fifteen Iraqi benign breast lesions, which used as a control and to construct the third TMA. For TMAs construction, each donor sample
were represented in triplicate, cores were transferred from each donor patient sample to the recipient block. Hematoxylin and Eosin (H and E) stained then immunohistochemically (IHC) studied for estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), Ki67, p53 and HER-2 for the three TMAs. The mean age of the Iraqi breast cancer patients in this study 49.38 ±8.29 years old; ranging from 36-69 years old. The mean age of the Italian patients 57.00 8.52; the range 39-73 years old. The mean age of the Iraqi patients was lower than the Italian breast cancer cases used in this study. ER positive expression was found in 26 (47.3%) out of 55 cases of the Iraqi breast cancer cases, In the Italian TMA, 23 (76%) cases out of 30 sample showed positively expressed ER; ER expression in the Iraqi samples were lower than the Italian samples. PR expression was observed in 35 (63.6%) out of 55 samples of the Iraqi breast cancer. For the Italian breast cancer TMA, 23 out of 30 cases had positively expressed PR (76%). Ki67 showed positive expression in 30 out of
TM 55 of the Iraqi breast cancer (54.5%), while in the Italian breast cancer TMA 23 out of 30 cases were positively expressed (76%).