title: Stromal, rather than epithelial cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression is associated with overall survival of breast cancer patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Prognostic value of enhanced COX-2 expression in breast cancer has been controversial for a long time. The opinions vary widely between studies. Moreover, significant majority of studies considered only COX-2 expression in cancer epithelial cells.
  
  
  METHODS
  We examined the prognostic value of COX-2 expression in both epithelial and stromal cells using three different antibodies and three algorithms of immunohistochemical scoring and categorizing the tumours into COX-2 overexpressing groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our results demonstrate that COX-2 expression in stromal cells is independent prognostic factor indicating worse overall survival of patients. Such a result was obtained using each of the three antibodies and two of the algorithms used for evaluations of COX-2 expression levels. We also show that immunohistochemical assessment of the prognostic value of COX-2 expression in cancer epithelial cells depends to a large extent on a combination of primary antibodies and algorithms used for determination of the COX-2 over-expressing tumours.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results indicate that stromal expression of COX-2 is independent prognostic parameter relatively insensitive to variations in sensitivity of antibodies used for its determination. Wide scatter of the published results concerning prognostic value of COX-2 expression in breast cancer tissues seems to be due to a large extent to multitude of antibodies and scoring algorithms used by different groups.
authors.forename: Justyna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Urban
authors.forename: Łukasz
authors.initials: Ł
authors.lastname: Kuźbicki
authors.forename: Grzegorz
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Szatkowski
authors.forename: Agata
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stanek-Widera
authors.forename: Dariusz
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lange
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Biology, Faculty of Biology and Environment Protection, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Lwowska 1, 87-100 Toruń, Poland. chwirot@biol.uni.torun.pl.
authors.forename: Barbara W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Chwirot
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001940:Breast / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D051546:Cyclooxygenase 2 / Q000378:metabolism*; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D017154:Stromal Cells / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D016019:Survival Analysis
chemical_list: D051546:Cyclooxygenase 2; C496540:PTGS2 protein, human