Androgen receptor status is a prognostic marker in non-basal triple negative breast cancers and determines novel therapeutic options

Triple negative breast cancers are a heterogeneous group of tumors characterized by poor patient survival and lack of targeted therapeutics. Androgen receptor has been associated with triple negative breast cancer pathogenesis, but its role in the different subtypes has not been clearly defined. We...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2014-02, Vol.9 (2), p.e88525-e88525
Main Authors: Gasparini, Pierluigi, Fassan, Matteo, Cascione, Luciano, Guler, Gulnur, Balci, Serdar, Irkkan, Cigdem, Paisie, Carolyn, Lovat, Francesca, Morrison, Carl, Zhang, Jianying, Scarpa, Aldo, Croce, Carlo M, Shapiro, Charles L, Huebner, Kay
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
African American women
Aged
Analysis
Androgen receptors
Androgens
Biology
Breast - metabolism
Breast - pathology
Breast cancer
Cancer
Cancer metastasis
Cancer research
Cell cycle
Clinical medicine
Cyclin-dependent kinases
Deregulation
Down-Regulation
Epidermal growth factor
Female
Gene expression
Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
Genes
Health risk assessment
Humans
Immunology
Immunoreactivity
Lesions
Lymph nodes
Lymphatic Metastasis - diagnosis
Lymphatic Metastasis - genetics
Lymphatic Metastasis - pathology
Medical prognosis
Medicine
Metastases
Middle Aged
mRNA
Pathogenesis
Pathology
Prognosis
Proteins
Quality
Receptors, Androgen - analysis
Receptors, Androgen - genetics
RNA
Survival
Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms - diagnosis
Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms - genetics
Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms - pathology
Tumors
Virology
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Summary:Triple negative breast cancers are a heterogeneous group of tumors characterized by poor patient survival and lack of targeted therapeutics. Androgen receptor has been associated with triple negative breast cancer pathogenesis, but its role in the different subtypes has not been clearly defined. We examined androgen receptor protein expression by immunohistochemical analysis in 678 breast cancers, including 396 triple negative cancers. Fifty matched lymph node metastases were also examined. Association of expression status with clinical (race, survival) and pathological (basal, non-basal subtype, stage, grade) features was also evaluated. In 160 triple negative breast cancers, mRNA microarray expression profiling was performed, and differences according to androgen receptor status were analyzed. In triple negative cancers the percentage of androgen receptor positive cases was lower (24.8% vs 81.6% of non-triple negative cases), especially in African American women (16.7% vs 25.5% of cancers of white women). No significant difference in androgen receptor expression was observed in primary tumors vs matched metastatic lesions. Positive androgen receptor immunoreactivity was inversely correlated with tumor grade (p
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0088525