Abstract 4738: Risk of ipsilateral invasive breast cancer after DCIS: a comparison of primary DCIS and subsequent invasive disease by morphological and immunohistochemical analysis
Authors: Visser Lindy L. , Elshof Lotte L. , Vijver Koen van de , Groen Emma J. , Almekinders Mathilde , Schmidt Marjanka K. , Leeuwen Flora van , Rutgers Emiel J. , Schaapveld Michael , Lips Esther H. , Wesseling Jelle 
Published: July 2017

INTRODUCTION. The wide spread adoption of population-based breast cancer screening has led to a substantial increase in diagnosis of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). When detected, almost all DCIS is treated to prevent progression to invasive disease, even though the majority of DCIS will never progress. Yet, we are unable to discriminate harmless from potentially hazardous DCIS. Hence, there is an urgent need to find characteristics of DCIS and biomarkers that predict subsequent invasive tumor development. In this study, we compared primary DCIS lesions with their subsequent ipsilateral invasive breast cancer (iIBC), to explore how the initial DCIS lesion and its subsequent iIBC are related.

PATIENTS AND METHODS. We used a population-based, nation-wide cohort consisting of 2,654 women who were treated for primary DCIS by breast conserving surgery (BCS) only. Within a median follow-up time of 10.7 years, 316 women developed a subsequent iIBC (12%). FFPE tissue blocks of both DCIS and subsequent iIBC could be collected for 158 of these 316 women. We assessed histology characteristics, tumor location, estrogen and progesterone receptor status, p16 expression, and HER2 and p53 overexpression. Additionally, DNA and RNA were simultaneously isolated from 100 DCIS and 100 matched subsequent iIBC specimens for extensive molecular profiling.

RESULTS. More than 95% of the invasive recurrences were located at or near the site of the primary DCIS. Concordant histological grade was found in 94% of the matched pairs and identical immunohistochemical (IHC) marker expression in 58%. Of the 44 patients with HER2 positive DCIS, 36% developed HER2 negative iIBC. Furthermore, this change in HER2 status was also a main cause of a change in surrogate intrinsic subtype (based on ER, PR, HER2) between DCIS and iIBC, which was observed in 16% of the patients. These dissimilarities were not found when we compared invasive disease with synchronous DCIS (present in 83 of 158 patients). Molecular analyses is still ongoing.

CONCLUSION. This is the first time that an unbiased comparison could be made between primary DCIS and its subsequent iIBC within such a large patient group, integrating clinical, histological and IHC data. Our results suggest that the majority of invasive breast cancers in our cohort reflect outgrowth of residual disease based on tumor location and histological grade. DCIS and iIBC are very similar when comparing histological grade, but frequently show differences on the IHC level. Remarkably, the dissimilarities in HER2 status and surrogate intrinsic subtype as seen in primary DCIS vs. iIBC are missing when comparing IBC with synchronous DCIS. As a next step, we will analyse the lesions on the molecular level, to verify these findings and to look for molecular characteristics of DCIS that could be associated with progression to invasive disease.

Citation Format: Lindy L. Visser, Lotte L. Elshof, Koen van de Vijver, Emma J. Groen, Mathilde Almekinders, Marjanka K. Schmidt, Flora van Leeuwen, Emiel J. Rutgers, Michael Schaapveld, Esther H. Lips, Jelle Wesseling. Risk of ipsilateral invasive breast cancer after DCIS: a comparison of primary DCIS and subsequent invasive disease by morphological and immunohistochemical analysis [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 4738. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-4738