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Annals of Oncology Advance Access published online on November 3, 2009
Annals of Oncology, doi:10.1093/annonc/mdp510
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society for Medical Oncology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Expression of androgen receptors in primary breast cancer

S. Park1, J. Koo2, H. S. Park1, J.-H. Kim1, S.-Y. Choi1, J. H. Lee1, B.-W. Park1,3,* and K. S. Lee4

1 Department of Surgery
2 Department of Pathology
3 Brain Korea 21 Project for Medical Science, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul
4 Department of Surgery, Pochon CHA University College of Medicine, Seongnam, Korea

* Correspondence to: Dr B.-W. Park, Department of Surgery, Yonsei University College of Medicine, 250 Seongsan-no, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-752, Korea. Tel: +82-2-2228-2121; Fax: +82-2-313-8289; E-mail: bwpark{at}yuhs.ac

Background: To investigate the clinicopathological significance of androgen receptor (AR) expression in primary breast cancers.

Patients and methods: We evaluated AR using immunohistochemistry from 413 whole sections from January 2008 to March 2009 and analyzed the relationship between AR and clinicopathological parameters. Tumors with ≥10% nuclear-stained cells were considered to be positive for AR. The differences among variables were calculated by chi-square test.

Results: The expression rate of AR was 72.9% higher than those of estrogen receptors (ER) and progesterone receptors. AR expression was significant in patients with no elevated preoperative serum cancer antigen 15-3 levels, smaller tumor size, lower histologic grade and hormone receptor-positive and non-triple-negative breast cancer. However, AR expression was observed in 35% of triple-negative cancers. Metaplastic, medullary and mucinous types of carcinomas showed less AR expression. In the ER-negative subgroup, AR was significantly correlated with human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER-2) overexpression.

Conclusions: AR is expressed in a significant number of breast cancers and is associated with lower tumor burden and favorable differentiation. There are many issues to be further investigated such as whether AR is an independent prognostic factor, whether it is a therapeutic target for the triple-negative breast cancers and whether it is associated with HER-2 signaling in ER-negative tumors.

androgen receptor, breast cancer, estrogen receptor negative, HER-2 signal pathway

Received for publication September 16, 2009. Accepted for publication September 29, 2009.


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