BACKGROUND

Maspin is known to be a tumor suppressor protein: however, its prognostic value in patients with breast cancer remains controversial. The key influential factors contributing to this complexity may be the differences in antibodies used, as well as the positive criteria and sample size. To date, no study has investigated the prognostic significance of maspin expression by using two different antibodies in the same cohort. We aimed to clarify whether differences in antibodies could influence on the prognostic value of maspin in breast cancer patients.

METHODS

Immunohistochemical analyses using an anti-maspin antibody (clone G167-70) were performed on 164 resected specimens of invasive carcinoma of no special type (NOS). The correlation with clinicopathological factors was compared to previous results using clone EAW24, with longer follow-up duration.

RESULTS

The subcellular localization of maspin expression was as follows: cytoplasmic-only staining, 3 cases (1.8%), pancellular staining, 43 cases (26.2%); and no staining, 118 cases (72.0%). No nuclear-only staining was observed. There was no significant correlation between clinicopathological characteristics and the pancellualr expression of maspin. The pancellular expression group showed a significantly longer disease-free survival (DFS) than the other groups ( = 0.046). When clone EAW24 was used, the cytoplasmic-only staining group showed significantly shorter DFS than the pancellular staining group ( = 0.003).

CONCLUSION

Clone EAW24 may be superior to clone G167-70 in selecting breast carcinoma with an aggressive phenotype, while clone G167-70 may be superior to clone EAW24 in selecting non-aggressive breast carcinoma.