title: Glycoprotein CD44 expression and its association with survival in breast cancer.
abstract: To investigate the clinical significance of CD44 expression (lymphocyte-homing receptor) in adenocarcinoma, deparaffinized sections from 198 female breast carcinomas were stained with Hermes-3 MoAb for CD44 glycoprotein. In 16% of the cancers most (> or = 90%) of the cancer cells stained positively for CD44, whereas the rest of the cancers were either heterogenous (46%) or negative (38%) in CD44 staining. Cancers with > 50% CD44 positive cells were more often poorly differentiated (grade 3) than those with < or = 50% positive cells (38 vs. 19%, P = 0.006), they had higher mitotic counts (P = 0.04), and were more often estrogen receptor negative (52 vs. 31%, P = 0.01). Among ductal not otherwise specified cancers and node-positive cancers strong CD44 expression was associated with poor outcome (P = 0.05 and 0.02, respectively). However, CD44 expression was not an independent prognostic factor in these subgroups in a multivariate analysis. Unlike in lymphomas the unfavorable prognosis associated with CD44 expression may not be explained by the greater metastatic potential of CD44-positive cells, because the difference in mortality between the groups appeared to diminish with time, and CD44 positivity was associated with aggressive histological features.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology and Radiotherapy, Turku University Central Hospital, University of Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Joensuu
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Klemi
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Toikkanen
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jalkanen
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000032:analysis; D005260:Female; D015870:Gene Expression; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008875:Middle Aged; D016201:Receptors, Lymphocyte Homing / Q000032:analysis*; D016019:Survival Analysis
chemical_list: D004273:DNA, Neoplasm; D016201:Receptors, Lymphocyte Homing