Kwon Hee Jung, Choi Jung Eun, Bae Young Kyung
1 Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Daegu, South Korea.
2 Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Daegu, South Korea.
Tumour Biol. 2018 Jun;40(6):1010428318783657. doi: 10.1177/1010428318783657.
Interleukin-13 receptor alpha 2 is one of the subunits of transmembrane receptor for interleukin-13. The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic value of interleukin-13 receptor alpha 2 expression in invasive breast cancer. Interleukin-13 receptor alpha 2 expressions were assessed by immunohistochemistry in tissue microarrays of 1283 invasive breast cancer samples, and associations between these expressions and clinicopathological variables and clinical outcomes were investigated. Interleukin-13 receptor alpha 2 expression was observed in 138 (10.8%) samples, and found to be associated with positive estrogen receptor (p < 0.001) and progesterone receptor (p < 0.001) and with the luminal subtype (p < 0.001). No significant association was found between interleukin-13 receptor alpha 2 expression and other clinicopathological variables including age, tumor size, lymph node metastasis, histologic types, histologic grade, HER2 status, Ki-67 labeling index, or tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes levels. Patients with interleukin-13 receptor alpha 2 expression tended to have poorer disease-free survival, but the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.069). Subgroup analysis showed luminal breast cancer patients positive for interleukin-13 receptor alpha 2 expression had significantly poorer disease-free survival (p = 0.018) than luminal breast cancer patients negative for interleukin-13 receptor alpha 2 expression. However, no association between interleukin-13 receptor alpha 2 expression and clinical outcome was observed in HER2-positive and triple-negative subgroups (p = 0.574 and p = 0.936, respectively). Multivariate analysis showed interleukin-13 receptor alpha 2 expression was an independent poor prognostic factor for luminal breast cancer (p = 0.03). This study shows interleukin-13 receptor alpha 2 expression could be a useful prognostic marker for selecting patients with luminal breast cancer likely to follow a clinically aggressive course despite receiving systemic therapy.
白细胞介素-13受体α2是白细胞介素-13跨膜受体的亚基之一。本研究旨在探讨白细胞介素-13受体α2表达在浸润性乳腺癌中的预后价值。采用免疫组织化学方法对1283例浸润性乳腺癌样本的组织芯片进行白细胞介素-13受体α2表达评估，并研究这些表达与临床病理变量及临床结局之间的关联。在138例（10.8%）样本中观察到白细胞介素-13受体α2表达，发现其与雌激素受体阳性（p＜0.001）、孕激素受体阳性（p＜0.001）及管腔亚型（p＜0.001）相关。未发现白细胞介素-13受体α2表达与其他临床病理变量之间存在显著关联，这些变量包括年龄、肿瘤大小、淋巴结转移、组织学类型、组织学分级、HER2状态、Ki-67标记指数或肿瘤浸润淋巴细胞水平。白细胞介素-13受体α2表达阳性的患者无病生存期往往较差，但差异无统计学意义（p = 0.069）。亚组分析显示，白细胞介素-13受体α2表达阳性的管腔型乳腺癌患者的无病生存期明显低于白细胞介素-13受体α2表达阴性的管腔型乳腺癌患者（p = 0.018）。然而，在HER2阳性和三阴性亚组中未观察到白细胞介素-13受体α2表达与临床结局之间的关联（分别为p = 0.574和p = 0.936）。多因素分析显示，白细胞介素-13受体α2表达是管腔型乳腺癌独立的不良预后因素（p = 0.03）。本研究表明，白细胞介素-13受体α2表达可能是一种有用的预后标志物，用于选择尽管接受了全身治疗但仍可能出现临床侵袭性病程的管腔型乳腺癌患者。
