Altered Microenvironment Promotes Progression of Preinvasive Breast Cancer: Myoepithelial Expression of αvβ6 Integrin in DCIS Identifies High-risk Patients and Predicts Recurrence

These findings indicate that altered myoepithelial cells in DCIS predict disease progression and recurrence and show that upregulation of αvβ6 on myoepithelial cells generates a tumor promoter function through TGFβ upregulation of MMP-9. These data suggest that expression of αvβ6 may be used to stratify patients with DCIS.