Clinicopathological Significance and Predictive Value of High Intratumoral Tumor Budding in Patients With Breast Carcinoma Treated With Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy

Background/Aim: The clinicopathological significance and predictive value of tumor budding (TB) in patients with breast carcinoma (BC) treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) have not been fully elucidated. This study aimed to evaluate the role of TB in predicting the response to NAC in patients with BC. Patients and Methods: We reviewed the pre-NAC biopsy slides obtained from 81 patients with BC and assessed the number of intratumoral TB. The association between TB and response to NAC and clinicopathological characteristics was evaluated. Results: High TB (>= 10 per 20x objective field), which was associated with more frequent lymph node metastasis and lower pathological complete response (pCR) rate, was observed in 57 (70.2%) cases. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that high TB independently predicted non-pCR. Conclusion: High TB is associated with adverse features of BC. High TB on pre-NAC biopsy can be used as a predictive biomarker for non-pCR in NAC-treated patients with BC.