Androgen receptor expression in ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast: relation to oestrogen and progesterone receptors

Abstract

Aims: Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) of the breast has been diagnosed increasingly since the advent of mammographic screening. In contrast to the situation in invasive breast carcinoma, there are no reports on androgen receptor (AR) status in DCIS and few reports on oestrogen (ER) and progesterone (PR) receptors. Methods: AR expression was examined in 57 cases of DCIS of the breast and correlated to the degree of differentiation and ER/PR status using immunohistochemical methods. Results: AR positivity was noted in 19 of the cases, whereas the other 38 cases were negative. There was no significant association between AR expression and the degree of differentiation of DCIS; three of the 13 well differentiated DCIS cases, 10 of the 19 intermediately differentiated cases, and six of the 25 poorly differentiated cases were positive (p = 0.093). However, a strong association was shown between the expression of ER (p < 0.0001) and PR (p = 0.002) and the degree of differentiation of DCIS. In addition, no significant association was found between the expression of AR and the expression of ER (p = 0.26) or PR (p = 0.57) in DCIS of the breast. Conclusions: A large number of cases of DCIS of the breast express AR and this may be associated with apocrine differentiation, which may impact on accurate typing of DCIS. Moreover, the expression of AR (but not ER or PR) in DCIS does not appear to be associated with the degree of differentiation.

Immunohistochemical categorisation of ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast

“…Oestrogen receptor, PR, and AR were positive in 68, 46 and 37% of the patients in our series, respectively. Others found ER, PR, and AR expression in 54 -73, 49 -61, and 33 -44%, respectively (Selim et al, 2002;Baqai and Shousha, 2003;Barnes et al, 2005;Rody et al, 2005). We further found that well-and intermediately differentiated DCISs were predominantly ER positive and PR positive, while poorly differentiated DCIS usually lacked steroid receptor expression and was correlated with Her2 overexpression.…”

“…Not many studies investigated AR in DCIS. Moinfar et al (2003) reported a higher rate of AR expression in especially low-grade DCIS as opposed to high-grade DCIS, although others did not find a correlation between AR expression and grade (Selim et al, 2002). Androgen receptor-positive breast cancer patients have prolonged survival and a better response to hormonal treatment than AR-negative patients.…”

Androgen receptors as a prognostic and predictive factor in breast cancer.

“…It has been demonstrated that the expression of androgen receptor on cancer cells is often accompanied by the expression of estrogen receptor, and even more frequently progesterone receptor [16][17][18][19]. Therefore many authors maintain that knowing the status of all the three types of steroid receptors will facilitate predicting more accurately the response of patients to hormone therapy [16][17][18][19][20][21].…”

“…Therefore many authors maintain that knowing the status of all the three types of steroid receptors will facilitate predicting more accurately the response of patients to hormone therapy [16][17][18][19][20][21].…”

Androgen and vitamin D receptor expression in archival human breast tumors

“…Receptors for estrogen (ER), progesterone (PR), androgen (AR), and vitamin D (VDR) are present in normal human breast and tumor cells (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7). The predictive and prognostic significance of ER and PR expression in breast cancer has been elucidated in several recent studies (7,8). In comparison, the significance of AR and VDR expression in human breast tumors is less clear.…”