title: Decreased androgen receptor expression is associated with distant metastases in patients with androgen receptor-expressing triple-negative breast carcinoma.
abstract: To characterize prognostic values of androgen receptor (AR) in triple-negative (TN) breast cancers, we investigated AR expression status and levels, explored an association of AR expression with metastatic disease, and correlated AR expression with Ki-67 in TN invasive breast carcinomas. AR expression was analyzed with immunohistochemistry in 121 cases of TN tumors. Thirty-nine cases had distant metastatic disease and 82 had locoregional disease only. AR was positive in 38 (31.4%) of the 121 cases. Our results indicate that among the AR-positive TN tumors, distant metastases are significantly associated with lower expression of AR compared with cases with only locoregional disease, and that AR expression negatively correlates with Ki-67 expression. These findings suggest that decreased intratumoral AR expression may be predictive of distant metastatic disease and AR expression levels may have potential prognostic value in AR-expressing TN tumors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390-9073, USA.
authors.forename: Lisa M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Sutton
authors.forename: Dengfeng
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.forename: Venetia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Sarode
authors.forename: Kyle H
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Molberg
authors.forename: Kwame
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Torgbe
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Haley
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Peng
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000378:metabolism / Q000556:secondary*; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000378:metabolism; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019394:Ki-67 Antigen / Q000378:metabolism; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D011379:Prognosis; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000378:metabolism*; D011944:Receptors, Androgen / Q000378:metabolism*; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen / Q000378:metabolism*; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D019394:Ki-67 Antigen; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D011944:Receptors, Androgen; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone