Evaluation of CD14 expression in local recurrence in women with breast cancer (histopathological and immunohistochemical study)

Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent cancer among women globally. CD14 high expression levels are associated with more aggressive behavior. The study aims to assess CD14 expressions in locally recurrent breast cancer and corresponding primary tumors whenever available, both intratumorally and peritumorally, and to analyze its association with clinicopathological features. This retrospective cross-sectional study included 55 cases of women with locally recurrent breast cancer. They were immunohistochemically stained using anti-CD14 antibody. Statistical associations between CD14 expression and available clinicopathological data were done. Immunoexpression of CD14 was positive peritumorally in (50.9%) of the recurrent breast cancer cases. In the 18 available corresponding primary breast cancer, CD14 was positive only in 2 cases (11.1%) peritumorally. There was significant association between CD14-positive peritumoral immunohistochemical expression with molecular subtype (luminal B), Ki67 (≥14) and the early recurrence time (≤5 years), P values were (0.002, <0.001 & 0.042) respectively. Peritumoral CD14 positivity was significantly higher in recurrent breast cancer cases (50.9%) than in available primary ones (11.1%). CD14 positivity was higher in recurrent than in primary breast cancer, and its statistically significant association with early recurrence and high Ki67 suggests a potential role in breast cancer progression.