title: Androgen Receptor Expression in Breast Carcinoma of Egyptian Patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Breast carcinoma (BC) is a heterogeneous disease, with distinctive molecular sub-types, influencing BC patients prognosis and therapeutic options. Androgen Receptor (AR) is a steroid nuclear receptor involved in complex signaling pathways, that are thought to play a role in cell proliferation. AR expression in relation to different molecular sub-types of BC is not clearly understood.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to evaluate the expression of AR in BC from Egyptian patients and correlate it with the standard clinico-pathologic variables, molecular sub-type of BC and the Overall Survival (OS).
  
  
  METHODS
  This retrospective study was conducted on 81 cases of BC from egyptian patients, stained immunohistochemically with AR. Chi-Square and Kaplan-Meier tests were applied to study the correlation between AR expression and clinicopathologic variables and the OS of BC patients respectively.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among studied BC cases, 37.04% were immunoreactive to AR. AR immunoreactivity was significantly corrrelated with older age (p=0.03), post-menopausal status (p=0.001), lower grade (p=0.003), the presence of in-situ component (p= 0.014), early stage of presentation (p=0.03) and good-moderate NPI (0.009). It was also correlated with Positive ER, negative HER-2/neu, low Ki-67 proliferation index and luminal A subtype. AR expression didn't correlate with the OS in the studied cases.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  AR was found to be related to favourable prognostic factors in BC but not to OS. It was particularly expressed in luminal A group and in significant proportion in Triple Negative Breast Carcinoma (TNBC), providing an opportunity for AR targeted therapy.
authors.affiliation: Professor, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University , Egypt .
authors.forename: Rehab Monir
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Samaka
authors.affiliation: Lecturer, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University , Egypt .
authors.forename: Sheren Fouad
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Younes
keywords: Immunohistochemical; Molecular subtypes; Prognosis; Steroid receptor