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

Figure 3

Elevated extracellular Gal-3 is a marker of chemotherapy efficacy in breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy: levels of extracellular Gal-3 were monitored in patients receiving chemotherapy prior to surgery before (pre) and after (post) chemotherapy through immunohistochemical (IHC) analyses on paraffin-embedded biopsy (prechemo) and surgical (postchemo) samples. (a, c) Most of the patients that remained in remission during the study period exhibited high expression of Gal-3 in tumor stroma after Taxol therapy. (b, c) This increase in extracellular Gal-3 levels was not observed in patients with disease recurrence within 20 months. (c) This inhibition of cancer recurrence was true regardless of the initial grouping and was only dependent upon the increase in stromal levels of Gal-3 post Taxane chemotherapy (). (d) Average plasma Gal-3 levels remained low and unchanged in response to chemotherapy.

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