Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Oncology. 2013;85(2):128-36. doi: 10.1159/000351473. Epub 2013 Aug 13.
Recent preclinical studies have shown that Forkhead box protein 3 (FOXP3) is an important tumor suppressor gene. The clinical and prognostic implication of FOXP3 expression in breast cancer cells still remains controversial.
We evaluated the FOXP3 expression status of 183 patients who underwent curative surgery for breast cancer using the immunohistochemical assay of tissue microarray.
We found FOXP3 expression in 51 out of 183 (27.9%) surgically resected breast cancer tumors, and 33 patients were scored as weak positive and 18 as strong positive. FOXP3-positive tumors were associated with significantly higher nuclear grade, higher histologic grade and a more negative estrogen receptor status. The FOXP3 expression level was independently associated with high Ki-67 index in a logistic regression model. In the node-positive subgroup, strong FOXP3 positivity was related to poor disease-free survival and disease-specific survival compared to FOXP3-negative patients, whereas there was no survival difference between FOXP3-negative and FOXP3-weak-positive patients. Multivariate analysis with adjustment for patient age and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 status demonstrated significantly poor survival of FOXP3-strong-positive patients in node-positive patients.
Our results suggest that strong FOXP3 expression in breast cancer cells is associated with poor prognosis and high Ki-67 index.
最近的临床前研究表明，叉头框蛋白 3（FOXP3）是一个重要的肿瘤抑制基因。FOXP3 在乳腺癌细胞中的表达的临床和预后意义仍存在争议。
我们使用组织微阵列免疫组化检测了 183 例接受乳腺癌根治性手术患者的 FOXP3 表达状态。
我们发现 183 例乳腺癌手术切除标本中有 51 例（27.9%）FOXP3 表达阳性，其中 33 例为弱阳性，18 例为强阳性。FOXP3 阳性肿瘤与核分级较高、组织学分级较高和雌激素受体状态阴性显著相关。FOXP3 表达水平在逻辑回归模型中与高 Ki-67 指数独立相关。在淋巴结阳性亚组中，与 FOXP3 阴性患者相比，FOXP3 强阳性与无病生存和疾病特异性生存不良相关，而 FOXP3 阴性和 FOXP3 弱阳性患者之间无生存差异。调整患者年龄和人表皮生长因子受体 2 状态的多变量分析显示，淋巴结阳性患者中 FOXP3 强阳性患者的生存明显较差。
我们的研究结果表明，乳腺癌细胞中 FOXP3 的强表达与预后不良和 Ki-67 指数高相关。
