Haruna Muibat, Daramola Adetola Olubunmi, Awolola Nicholas Awodele, Badr Nahla Mustafa, Banjo Adekunbiola Aina Fehintola, Shaaban Abeer
Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos 100254, Nigeria.
Department of Anatomic and Molecular Pathology, College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Lagos 101014, Nigeria.
Ecancermedicalscience. 2022 Oct 3;16:1452. doi: 10.3332/ecancer.2022.1452. eCollection 2022.
Androgen receptor (AR) is one of the predominant nuclear hormone receptors in invasive breast cancer and can be explored as a biomarker of response for targeted anti-androgen therapy, especially in the setting of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). Luminal AR is a distinct subtype amongst TNBC cases following gene expression studies. TNBC is higher in Africans (23%-82%) and African-Americans (29.8%) compared to Caucasian (10%-15%) breast cancer patients; however, there is a paucity of data on AR expression in this population. The aim of this study is to determine the expression of AR and the proportion of AR positive cancers in TNBCs at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos, Nigeria.
Out of 99 reviewed cases, 78 formalin fixed, paraffin embedded TNBC cases were assembled into a tissue microarray, stained and analysed for AR expression using immunohistochemistry.
The mean age of the TNBC patients was 49.3 years (range: 20-80 years). The histologic types in this study were invasive carcinoma (no special type) 75.4%; metaplastic carcinoma 21.4%; lobular carcinoma and mucinous carcinoma 1.6% each. Of 61 TNBC cases analysed, 37.7% were AR positive and 62.3% were AR negative, making the latter to become quadruple negative breast cancers. There was a significant association between age and AR expression ( = 0.02). In the subjects that expressed AR positivity, patients below 50 years accounted for 34.8% (8 of 23) while 65.2% (15 of 23) were above 50 years. There was no significant association between AR expression and histologic type or tumour grade.
Over a third of this Nigerian TNBC cohort study is AR+. This warrants further exploration of the predictive and prognostic significance of its expression amongst TNBC and the potential for targeted therapy, specifically androgen antagonists to improve the outcome of this disease with limited therapeutic options.
雄激素受体（AR）是浸润性乳腺癌中主要的核激素受体之一，可作为靶向抗雄激素治疗反应的生物标志物进行研究，尤其是在三阴性乳腺癌（TNBC）的情况下。基因表达研究表明，管腔型AR是TNBC病例中的一种独特亚型。与白人乳腺癌患者（10%-15%）相比，非洲人（23%-82%）和非裔美国人（29.8%）的TNBC发病率更高；然而，关于该人群中AR表达的数据却很少。本研究的目的是确定尼日利亚拉各斯拉各斯大学教学医院TNBC中AR的表达情况以及AR阳性癌症的比例。
在99例经审查的病例中，将78例福尔马林固定、石蜡包埋的TNBC病例组装成组织芯片，进行染色并使用免疫组织化学分析AR表达。
TNBC患者的平均年龄为49.3岁（范围：20-80岁）。本研究中的组织学类型为浸润性癌（无特殊类型）75.4%；化生性癌21.4%；小叶癌和黏液癌各1.6%。在分析的61例TNBC病例中，37.7%为AR阳性，62.3%为AR阴性，后者成为四阴性乳腺癌。年龄与AR表达之间存在显著关联（P = 0.02）。在表达AR阳性的受试者中，50岁以下的患者占34.8%（23例中的8例），而50岁以上的患者占65.2%（23例中的15例）。AR表达与组织学类型或肿瘤分级之间无显著关联。
在这项尼日利亚TNBC队列研究中，超过三分之一的病例为AR阳性。这值得进一步探讨其在TNBC中的表达的预测和预后意义以及靶向治疗的潜力，特别是雄激素拮抗剂，以改善这种治疗选择有限的疾病的治疗效果。
