Microsatellite instability is not a common feature in medullary breast cancer

Microsatellite instability (MSI) is a form of genomic instability associated with defective DNA mismatch repair in tumors. MSI is found in 85–90% of hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer cases; however, its occurrence in breast carcinogenesis still remains to be clarified. In addition, data are limited on the incidence of MSI in the medullary subtype. The purpose of this study was to investigate the occurrence of MSI in medullary breast cancer (MBC). The study included a total of 16 patients with MBC, nine with typical and seven with atypical histology. The incidence of MSI in five microsatellite loci (D2S123, D3S1611, D17S807, D17S796 and Xq11-12) was determined by comparing paired normal and tumor tissue DNA after PCR amplification from paraffin-embedded tissues. All 16 tumors showed stability at five loci. Although the number of microsatellite markers and DNA samples may limit the value of our results, we conclude that the MSI phenotype is uncommon in human MBC.