Elevated Soluble Galectin-3 as a Marker of Chemotherapy Efficacy in Breast Cancer Patients: A Prospective Study

Figure 2

Elevated levels of Gal-3 are a positive predictor for response for patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy: (a, b) sections of paraffin-embedded tumor tissue were stained with H&E for general morphology and Gal-3 for expression level and localization analysis (400x magnification). Each stained sectioned was scored by two researchers and a pathologist. Patients remaining in remission at the end of 84-month follow-up period had significantly higher levels of extracellular Gal-3 in tumor microenvironment compared to those with recurrent/metastatic disease (). (c) Average plasma Gal-3 levels were calculated at the time of diagnosis (pre), 2 weeks postsurgical tumor removal (Post) and after each chemotherapy cycle (CTX-1-4) in patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy (). Notice significant increase in Gal-3 levels with each chemotherapy cycle in adjuvant patients (Pre: CTX2 ; Pre: CTX3 compared to initial (Pre) levels). (d) Patients that went in remission and remained disease free over the 84-month follow up period had at least a 2-fold increase (range 2-11-fold) in plasma Gal-3 levels in response to chemotherapy. On the other hand, patients with recurrent disease did not show the same dramatic increase in plasma Gal-3 levels postchemotherapy (). Error bars show ±SEM.

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