Vimentin expression appears to be associated with poor prognosis in node-negative ductal NOS breast carcinomas.
 Vimentin expression in tumors from 83 node-negative and 112 node-positive patients with infiltrative ductal not otherwise specified (NOS) breast carcinomas has been compared with 5-year survival.
 For node-negative, but not for node-positive patients, there was a significant inverse relation between vimentin expression and survival.
 Five-year survival of node-negative patients with vimentin-positive tumors was significantly worse compared with vimentin-negative tumors (P less than 0.0001).
 In the node-negative group, only 36% of patients with vimentin-positive tumors but 82% of patients with vimentin-negative tumors survived 5 years.
 Tumors of all eight node-negative patients with ductal NOS cancer who died in the first 27 months expressed vimentin.
 Multivariate analysis of the node-negative group showed a strong correlation of vimentin expression and overall survival, but weak and not significant correlation between histologic grade or size and overall survival at 5 years.
 Thus vimentin expression seems to be a strong indicator of poor prognosis in node-negative ductal NOS breast carcinomas.
