title: Basoluminal carcinoma: a new biologically and prognostically distinct entity between basal and luminal breast cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Breast carcinomas expressing basal epithelium cytokeratins constitute a tumor subgroup that is typically hormone receptor negative and shows a distinct gene expression profile. Based on variable basal cytokeratin immunostaining patterns, we hypothesized that the "basal phenotype" tumor group may comprise more than one biological entity.
  
  
  METHODS
  Basal cytokeratins 5 and 14 (CK5/14) were stained by immunohistochemistry and the percentage of positive cells was defined by image analysis. The results thus obtained were compared with clinicopathologic characteristics and relapse-free survival.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 506 breast tumors, 53 (10.5%) showed immunoreactivity for CK5/14. Basal cytokeratin expression showed up as two microscopically distinguishable subtypes, i.e., a uniformly positive type ("basal") and a partially positive type ("basoluminal") often displaying a checkerboard-type intratumoral heterogeneity. These subgroups could also be separated with a third basal cytokeratin (CK17, P < 0.0001). Both basal and basoluminal subtypes were hormone receptor negative and of high grade, but differed with respect to the Ki-67 labeling index (P = 0.0014), vimentin (P = 0.005), and c-kit (P = 0.02), which were more frequently expressed in basal than in basoluminal tumors. In contrast, the amplification of HER-2 was found almost exclusively in the basoluminal subgroup (P = 0.009). Compared with the basal tumors, basoluminal tumors associated with significantly shorter relapse-free survival (P = 0.01), which was not explained by their more frequent HER-2 amplification.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that the intratumoral heterogeneity in basal cytokeratin expression can be used to define two distinct breast cancer subtypes, basal and basoluminal, with distinctive features related to proliferation activity, oncogene and biomarker status, and patient survival.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Seinäjoki Central Hospital, Seinäjoki, Finland. mervi.laakso@epshp.fi
authors.forename: Mervi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Laakso
authors.forename: Minna
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tanner
authors.forename: Jonas
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nilsson
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wiklund
authors.forename: Björn
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Erikstein
authors.forename: Pirkko
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kellokumpu-Lehtinen
authors.forename: Per
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Malmström
authors.forename: Nils
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wilking
authors.forename: Jonas
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bergh
authors.forename: Jorma
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Isola
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D053547:Keratin-14 / Q000096:biosynthesis; D053555:Keratin-5 / Q000096:biosynthesis; D007633:Keratins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis
chemical_list: D053547:Keratin-14; D053555:Keratin-5; D007633:Keratins