title: The expression of EGFR family ligands in breast carcinomas.
abstract: Expression of EGF, HB-EGF, TGF-alpha, HRG-alpha, HRG-beta1, and HRG-beta3 in 100 frozen breast carcinoma materials was immunohistochemically studied. Among these tumors, 67% were positive for EGF, 53% for HB-EGF, 57% for TGF-alpha, 60% for HRG-alpha, 53% for HRG-beta1, and 63% for HRG-beta3 in the neoplastic epithelial cells. No significant associations between expression of the growth factors and clinicopathological features like tumor size, histologic grade, node status, ploidy, ER status, and c-erbB-4 expression were observed, with the exceptions that significant relations were present between EGF expression and tumor size (p = 0.01) and between HRG-beta3 expression and node status (p = 0.02). The expressions of these growth factors showed no association with cancer-specific survival by the Kaplan Meier analysis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, The Norwegian Radium Hospital and Institute for Cancer Research, University of Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Zhenhe
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Suo
authors.forename: Bjørn
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Risberg
authors.forename: Mats G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Karlsson
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Villman
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Skovlund
authors.forename: Jahn M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Nesland
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000401:mortality / Q000556:secondary; D066246:ErbB Receptors / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D008024:Ligands; D008875:Middle Aged; D066247:Receptor, ErbB-4; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen / Q000378:metabolism; D016019:Survival Analysis; D015996:Survival Rate
chemical_list: D008024:Ligands; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen; C587689:ERBB4 protein, human; D066246:ErbB Receptors; D066247:Receptor, ErbB-4