Expression of cytokeratins 17 and 5 identifies a group of breast carcinomas with poor clinical outcome.
While several prognostic factors have been identified in breast carcinoma, the clinical outcome remains hard to predict for individual patients. Better predictive markers are needed to help guide difficult treatment decisions. In a previous study of 78 breast carcinoma specimens, we noted an association between poor clinical outcome and the expression of cytokeratin 17 and/or cytokeratin 5 mRNAs. Here we describe the results of immunohistochemistry studies using monoclonal antibodies against these markers to analyze more than 600 paraffin-embedded breast tumors in tissue microarrays. We found that expression of cytokeratin 17 and/or cytokeratin 5/6 in tumor cells was associated with a poor clinical outcome. Moreover, multivariate analysis showed that in node-negative breast carcinoma, expression of these cytokeratins was a prognostic factor independent of tumor size and tumor grade.
van de Rijn
Matt
M
L235 Department of Pathology, Stanford University Medical Center, 300 Pasteur Drive, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. mrijn@stanford.edu
Perou
Charles M
CM
Tibshirani
Rob
R
Haas
Phillippe
P
Kallioniemi
Olli
O
Kononen
Juha
J
Torhorst
Joachim
J
Sauter
Guido
G
Zuber
Markus
M
Köchli
Ossi R
OR
Mross
Frank
F
Dieterich
Holger
H
Seitz
Rob
R
Ross
Doug
D
Botstein
David
D
Brown
Pat
P
D000818:Animals; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000378:metabolism*; D001940:Breast / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D053555:Keratin-5; D007633:Keratins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D011379:Prognosis; D015996:Survival Rate; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; C503940:KRT5 protein, human; D053555:Keratin-5; D007633:Keratins