Ki-67 as prognostic marker in early breast cancer: a meta-analysis of published studies involving 12 155 patients

By E. Azambuja, F. Cardoso, G. D. Castro, M. Colozza, M. Mano, V. Durbecq, C. Sotiriou, D. Larsimont, M. Piccart-Gebhart, M. Paesmans. British Journal of Cancer, 2007

890 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The Ki-67 antigen is used to evaluate the proliferative activity of breast cancer (BC); however, Ki-67's role as a prognostic marker in BC is still undefined. In order to better define the prognostic value of Ki-67/MIB-1, we performed a meta-analysis of studies that evaluated the impact of Ki-67/MIB-1 on disease-free survival (DFS) and/or on overall survival (OS) in early BC. Sixty-eight studies were identified and 46 studies including 12 155 patients were evaluable for our meta-analysis; 38 studies were evaluable for the aggregation of results for DFS, and 35 studies for OS. Patients were considered to present positive tumours for the expression of Ki-67/MIB-1 according to the cut-off points defined by the authors. Ki-67/MIB-1 positivity is associated with higher probability of relapse in all patients (HR=1.93 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.74–2.14); P<0.001), in node-negative patients (HR=2.31 (95% CI: 1.83–2.92); P<0.001) and in node-positive patients (HR=1.59 (95% CI: 1.35–1.87); P<0.001). Furthermore, Ki-67/MIB-1 positivity is associated with worse survival in all patients (HR=1.95 (95% CI: 1.70–2.24; P<0.001)), node-negative patients (HR=2.54 (95% CI: 1.65–3.91); P<0.001) and node-positive patients (HR=2.33 (95% CI: 1.83–2.95); P<0.001). Our meta-analysis suggests that Ki-67/MIB-1 positivity confers a higher risk of relapse and a worse survival in patients with early BC.

Subfields: Cancer Research, Pathology and Forensic Medicine

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/69fd1ac1046d79278571207ad994f69e64f28da1

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cancer Research

In Pathology and Forensic Medicine

Citations in the corpus

ImmunoRatio: a publicly available web application for quantitative image analysis of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and Ki-67 (2010, background): “Patients with rapidly proliferating tumors are predicted to endure poorer outcomes than patients with tumors exhibiting low proliferation [4].”
Breast Cancer—Epidemiology, Risk Factors, Classification, Prognostic Markers, and Current Treatment Strategies—An Updated Review (2021, background): “Ki-67 might be considered as a potential prognostic factor as well; according to a meta-analysis of 68 studies involving 12,155 patients, the overexpression of Ki-67 is associated with poorer clinical outcomes of patients [207].”
Personalizing the treatment of women with early breast cancer: highlights of the St Gallen International Expert Consensus on the Primary Therapy of Early Breast Cancer 2013 (2013, methodology): “Ki-67 has been used for more than two decades as a prognostic marker in early breast cancer [110–118].”