Abnormal Chromosome 8 Copy Number in Stage I to Stage IV Breast Cancer Studied by Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization

To test the hypothesis that the frequency of abnormal chromosome 8 copy number increases with the severity of the disease as defined by an increase in clinical stage, we conducted a fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) study of a sample of 42 breast cancer specimens utilizing a protocol that was optimized by our laboratory. Cytogenetic results, obtained from blinded analyses of archival specimens, demonstrated that the higher clinical stages (i.e., stages III and IV) yield higher frequencies of abnormal chromosome 8 copy number. Specifically, 45.45% and 50% of the stage I and stage II cases, respectively, were abnormal, whereas 63.64% and 60% of the stage III and stage IV cases, respectively, were abnormal for chromosome 8 copy number. The overall frequency of abnormal chromosome 8 copy number was 54.76% (23 of 42 tumors studied). When the results of a control probe were taken into account, 34.78% (8 of 23) of the abnormal cases were trisomic, whereas the remaining cases were likely triploid. Thus, the present data not only established that chromosome 8 trisomy is a recurrent finding in breast cancer, but also confirmed a higher frequency of occurrence of abnormal chromosome 8 copy number with the higher clinical stages. Future experiments utilizing additional specimens in this laboratory and from other laboratories are necessary to confirm and extend the findings of the present study.