Interestingly, if high SOX2 expressors (score 3) were analyzed separately and compared to the rest of the group (score 0 to 2), they displayed significantly more often lymph-node metastases (p = 0.018) and larger primary tumors (p = 0.047; Figure 2; Table 3).
Controversially, Yang et al. have reported that bone and joints were involved more commonly in EPTB [ 16], while another study suggested that genitourinary system and skin were affected more often than lymph nodes in EPTB [ 17].
Patients in the neoadjuvant and in the familial series were younger (P<0.001) and had tumours with a lower stage (P<0.001), but more often positive lymph nodes (P=0.01) than tumours in the Adjuvant series.
Patients positive for HPV DNA presented significantly more often with lymph node metastasis (85 vs. 64%, P = 0.021) and included a higher proportion of never-smokers (55 vs. 30%, P = 0.010) compared with those negative for HPV.
Patients with breast cancer diagnosed between 2006 and 2012 had breast conserving therapy more often and axillary lymph node dissection less often (P<0.001), owing to the increasing use of sentinel lymph node biopsies over the years.
Furthermore, the patients with LOH at the ATBF1-A locus more often had axillary lymph node involvement than those without LOH (P = 0.084).
Type A-east and type B isolates were more likely to have been recovered from patients' lungs or blood, whereas type A-west isolates were more often isolated from lymph nodes.
It has however been shown that MAC is less likely to be resected with negative surgical margins [ 4], more often metastasizes to lymph nodes [ 5, 6] and generally presents at a later stage compared to NMAC [ 2].
