Plasma fibrinogen level may be a possible marker for the clinical response and prognosis of patients with breast cancer receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy

Abstract

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy has been established as standard treatments for advanced breast cancer among multidisciplinary therapies. A simple and instructive biomarker for the postoperative recurrence and metastasis is needed to evaluate the therapeutic effect. Plasma fibrinogen level has been shown to be associated with tumor progression and poor outcomes in breast cancer patients. This study aims to further evaluate the clinical and prognostic value of plasma fibrinogen level as a biomarker in breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy. In this study, data of 67 patients were retrospectively collected and analyzed to identify the relationship between the plasma fibrinogen level and the clinical progression and outcome of these patients. Patients with increased plasma fibrinogen level after neoadjuvant chemotherapy had significantly shorter disease-free survival and overall survival (p < 0.001 and p = 0.001, respectively). In a univariate survival analysis, molecular type (p = 0.0004/p = 0.005), clinical response (p = 0.008/p = 0.015), and changes in plasma fibrinogen level (p = 0.012/p = 0.007) were associated with disease-free survival and overall survival, and all of them, molecular type (p = 0.0003/p = 0.005), clinical response (p = 0.027/p = 0.021), and changes in plasma fibrinogen level (p = 0.035/p = 0.025), were associated with disease-free survival and overall survival in a multivariate survival analysis, respectively. The plasma fibrinogen level was found to be a possible biomarker for clinical response to chemotherapy and postoperative metastasis or death in advanced breast cancer patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy.