Overexpression of C326 (EpCAM) in carcinoma breast and its clinical correlation

4^th International Conference on Cytopathology & Histopathology

August 29-30, 2018 | Boston, USA

Sandhya Sundaram, Simon Durairaj, R Krishnakumar, R Ramya and D Karunagaran

IIT Madras and Sri Ramachandra Medical College & Hospital, India

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Cytol Histol

Abstract :

Statement of the Problem: The epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) is a type I transmembrane protein of 314 amino acids that is localized to the basolateral membrane in the majority of normal epithelial tissues. EpCAM has been demonstrated to be a calcium-independent homophilic cell adhesion molecule. Recent studies have also demonstrated a role for EpCAM in cell signaling and carcinogenesis. EpCAM is overexpressed in a variety of epithelial tumors such as gastric cancer, oesophageal cancer and prostate cancer. The main purpose of the study was to determine the expression pattern of EpCAM across molecular subtypes of carcinoma breast in the South Indian population and to correlate its expression with other clinical parameters. Immunohistochemical studies were performed on 50 cases of breast carcinoma of different molecular subtypes. This included Luminal A, Luminal B, Her2/neu & triple-negative subtypes. The expression was scored using the standard scoring system. A correlation was drawn with detailed clinicopathological annotation and available outcomes data. We observed strong EpCAM expression in 42 out of 50 cases. EpCAM expression varied significantly in the different intrinsic subtypes. Expression pattern was membranous. EpCAM expression is higher in TNBC & Her2/neu type of Breast Carcinoma. Higher expression was seen in node-positive tumors. EpCAM expression has critical and important implications in subsets who would benefit from targeted therapies.

Biography :

Sandhya Sundaram is a senior pathologist with 21 years of experience in practice of Pathology. She completed her MD & DNB in pathology and Postdoctoral certificate course in Laboratory Medicine. She has more than 50 publications in reputed journals and several national research grants. Her basic area of interest is oncopathology with a keen interest in Breast pathology, Genitourinary and Gastric Pathology. She is keenly interested in Morphological, Molecular Pathology and Molecular genetics of solid tumours and infections associated with malignancies and their molecular characterization. She has also worked in fungal infection in collaboration with Microbiology Department.

E-mail: sandsrid@gmail.com