title: Immunohistochemical demonstration of androgen receptor in breast cancer and its relationship to other prognostic factors.
abstract: Androgen actions and androgen receptors (ARs) have been described in human breast cancer cells both in vivo and in vitro. With the use of a new monoclonal anti-AR antibody, AR was immunohistochemically demonstrated in 76 primary breast cancers. Positive immunostaining was found in 79 percent of tumours. Benign ductal epithelium was often AR-positive whereas the tumour stroma lacked AR immunoreactivity. At the subcellular level, nuclear localization was evident using either cross-linking (Zamboni's fluid) or precipitating (acetone) fixatives on frozen sections. The use of archival paraffin-embedded tissue yielded negative results. A significant association was found between expression of AR and oestrogen receptor (ER) (P = 0.0006) determined immunohistochemically on adjacent sections. Most progesterone receptor (PR)-negative cases were also AR-negative (P = 0.02), but significant proportion (38 percent) of AR-positive tumours did not contain PR. Unlike ER, AR was not associated with aneuploidy or erb-B2 oncogene overexpression, and was only marginally associated with tumour proliferation rate (S-phase fraction by DNA flow cytometry). In conclusion, the close association of AR with ER and PR suggests that immunohistochemical determination of androgen receptors may have value as a prognostic factor and/or predictor of response to endocrine therapy.
authors.affiliation: University of Tampere, Department of Biomedicine, Finland.
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Isola
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000032:analysis*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000473:pathology; D002455:Cell Division; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D008875:Middle Aged; D009856:Oncogene Proteins, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D011003:Ploidies; D011379:Prognosis; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D011944:Receptors, Androgen / Q000032:analysis*; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen / Q000032:analysis; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D009856:Oncogene Proteins, Viral; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D011944:Receptors, Androgen; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone