Background and purpose: Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is with high invasion

poor prognosis and lack of usefull treatment. This study investigated expression status of ICAM-1 protein in TNBC in order to explore its relationship with clinicopathological features and outcome in patients. Methods: Fifty-nine tissue samples of TNBC were collected while 50 cases of para-carcinoma tissue samples were used as negative controls. Immunohistochemical staining was conducted to detect expression level of ICAM-1 protein. The relationship of ICAM-1 protein expression with clinicopathological features (age

tumor size

subtype

grade

status of lymph node metastasis

TNM stage

vascular tumor thrombus

nerve infiltration

Ki-67

p53 and E-cadherin expression) and outcome in patients were analyzed. Results: The ICAM-1 protein expression of TNBC was significantly higher than that in adjacent tissues (P=0.000). ICAM-1 expression was related to status of lymph node metastasis

grade and TNM stage (with a P-value of 0.036

0.027 and 0.048

respectively)

while demonstrated an undefined relationship with tumor size

subtype

vascular tumor thrombus and expression of Ki-67

p53 and E-cadherin. The disease-free survival (DFS) of ICAM-1 high expression set was shorter than that of the lower one but has nothing to do with overall survival (OS). In addition

Cox proportional hazards model showed that ICAM-1 expression and lymph node metastasis were independent risk factors of DFS in patients (HR=3.2

95%CI: 1.6 to 6.4

HR=2.7

95%CI: 1.28 to 5.9

P0.05). Conclusion: ICAM-1 could serve as a predictive factor for differentiation status of TNBC. The high expression of ICAM-1 in TNBC may indicate poorer prognosis.