Department of Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas; Morgan Welch Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Program and Clinic, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas.
Cancer. 2014 Jun 15;120(12):1775-9. doi: 10.1002/cncr.28667. Epub 2014 Mar 13.
Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is characterized by an aggressive clinical course with early metastasis and frequent resistance to conventional therapies. Identifying a novel therapeutic approach may improve the prognosis for patients with IBC. Because androgen receptor (AR)-expressing tumors may be targeted by anti-AR therapy, the authors examined the prevalence of AR expression in IBC tumors and explored its clinical relevance.
Tissue microarrays of 88 IBC tumors were stained immunohistochemically with monoclonal antibody against AR, and the results were correlated with clinicopathologic parameters and survival outcomes.
The median follow-up was 10.8 years. AR was positive in 39% of the IBC tumors and in approximately one-third of estrogen receptor (ER)-negative and progesterone receptor (PR)-negative tumors. AR positivity was significantly associated with lymphovascular invasion (P = .01) but not with other clinicopathologic parameters. There was a trend toward an association between AR expression and PR expression (P = .07). In univariate survival analysis, patients who had AR-negative/ER-negative tumors had significantly worse overall survival (P = .03) and disease-specific survival (P = .04) than patients who had tumors with other combinations of AR/ER status.
AR expression was common in IBC tumors, and AR positivity was significantly associated with lymphovascular invasion. Patients who had AR-negative/ER-negative tumors had the worst survival outcomes. Further study with a larger series will be required to delineate the biologic mechanisms of AR and their clinical significance in IBC tumors.
炎性乳腺癌（IBC）以早期转移和对常规治疗的频繁耐药为特征，具有侵袭性的临床病程。确定新的治疗方法可能会改善 IBC 患者的预后。由于雄激素受体（AR）表达的肿瘤可能可以通过抗 AR 治疗来靶向，因此作者研究了 IBC 肿瘤中 AR 表达的普遍性，并探讨了其临床相关性。
用抗 AR 单克隆抗体对 88 例 IBC 肿瘤的组织微阵列进行免疫组织化学染色，并将结果与临床病理参数和生存结果相关联。
中位随访时间为 10.8 年。IBC 肿瘤中 AR 阳性率为 39%，在大约三分之一的雌激素受体（ER）阴性和孕激素受体（PR）阴性肿瘤中阳性。AR 阳性与淋巴管血管侵犯显著相关（P=.01），但与其他临床病理参数无关。AR 表达与 PR 表达之间存在关联的趋势（P=.07）。在单因素生存分析中，AR 阴性/ER 阴性肿瘤患者的总生存率（P=.03）和疾病特异性生存率（P=.04）明显低于 AR/ER 状态其他组合的肿瘤患者。
AR 表达在 IBC 肿瘤中常见，AR 阳性与淋巴管血管侵犯显著相关。AR 阴性/ER 阴性肿瘤患者的生存结局最差。需要进行更大系列的进一步研究，以阐明 AR 的生物学机制及其在 IBC 肿瘤中的临床意义。
