ANALYSIS OF CD44 PROTEIN EXPRESSION PROFILE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH CLINICOPATHOLOGY OF BREAST CANCER PATIENTS IN BALI

Breast cancer is a malignancy that comes from the ductal and lobular epithelial cells of the breast which are most commonly suffered by women. In 2012, there were 1.67 new cases with more than 500 thousand deaths from breast cancer. In Asia Pacific, Indonesia ranks third as the country with the highest prevalence of breast cancer (12%) after China (46%) and Japan (14%). Risk factors for breast cancer are multifactorial, such as menopause over the age of 55, menarche at a young age, use of hormonal contraception, and mutations in tumor suppressor genes. So far, breast cancer cases are generally diagnosed at an advanced stage, so a marker is needed to determine the patient's prognosis. Several recent studies have shown that CD44 gene expression is associated with increased ability of breast cancer cell metastasis, tumor grade and decreased free survival rate which adversely affects the prognosis of patients. However, there are still limited studies that evaluate the relationship between CD44 expression based on clinicopathology of breast cancer patients in Indonesia. Therefore, research is needed to determine the expression of CD44 in breast cancer and its relationship with the patient's clinicopathology, so that later it can be used as a reference for further research development.
This research will be conducted at the Integrated Biomedical Laboratory and Biochemistry Laboratory of the Faculty of Medicine, Udayana University, which will last for 12 months. The sample used was venous blood with a minimum amount of 18 patients. Next, an ELISA will be performed on all blood samples to determine CD44 expression. All collected variables will be analyzed univariately and bivariately using SPSS version 25.0 to determine the relationship between CD44 expression and clinopathological breast cancer patients. The results of this study are expected to provide information on CD44 expression in breast cancer patients and their relationship with the patient's clinicopathology, so that they can provide a prognosis for breast cancer cases.

Keywords: CD44, Breast Cancer, Clinicopathologist.