Introduction
The c-Met protein, known as the hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) receptor, is a transmembrane 190 kDa heterodimer with tyrosine kinase activity, encoded by the c-met oncogene. The HGF/c-Met signalling pathway has been shown to demonstrate various cellular responses, including mitogenic, proliferative, morphogenic and angiogenic activities. Although HGF and c-Met are known to be expressed in a variety of organs and play important roles in signal transduction, studies of its expression correlated with clinico-pathological parameters in breast cancer are rare.