Androgen receptor expression in female patients with triple-negative breast cancer: Relation to clinical, pathological, and ethnical data and comparison with non–triple-negative breast cancer.

Abstract

e13022 Background: Breast cancer is the most common tumor among women. It constitutes 33% of all tumors in women in Israel. In addition to stage of the disease, other detective factors such as estrogen and progesterone receptors (ER) (PR), Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and proliferation index (KI67) are examined to determine the treatment for metastatic disease and for the adjuvant therapy. Despite a good prognosis of breast cancer about 10-15% of breast tumors do not contain ER, PR, HER2. This group of is more, aggressive, called Triple negative (TN) tumor. In TN tumors the treatment is mainly chemical therapy, and the survival is lower than other types (Non triple negative: NTN) of breast cancers. Androgen receptor (AR) receptor is very important in prostate cancer and forms the basis of hormonal treatments for prostate cancer. AR can also be present in some breast cancer patients. This study examined AR levels in patients with TN breast cancer in order to evaluate whether AR could be used as a prognostic or therapeutic factor in patients with TN breast cancer. Methods: Demographic, clinical and pathological data were collected from the files of breast cancer patients treated at the Oncology Institute at Ziv Medical Center, Israel, between 2013 and 2020. Tissue samples were taken from the tumors at the Ziv Pathological Institute which were stored in paraffin. The evaluation of AR in breast cancer tissues was done by immunohistochemistry test. 55 TN cases were examined along in addition 90 cases with NTN were examined for comparison. Results: The mean age of the patients in the TN group was 56.9 ± 16.2 compared with 59.8 ± 13.5 years in the NTN group. 83.6% were Jewish and 16.4% Arab. 36.4% of TN patients were of childbearing age. 61.8% of the tumors in TN were Grade 3 compared to 32.2% in the NTN group (P = 0.001). Ki67) was 57.4 ± 27.8 in TN tumors and 24.9 ± 25.4 in NTN (0.001 <P =). In 69.1% of TN patients AR was found to be negative compared to 26.7% in NTN (P = <0.001). AR was found to be high in 9% of TN patients and in 72.8% in NTN who survived 5 years without disease (P = <0.001). Negative AR was found in 75% of the patients who died from the disease in both groups. Positive AR was found in 30.9% of TN tumors compared to 73.3% in NTN (P = <0.001). Conclusions: The AR receptor has a prognostic importance in breast cancer. We found that positive AR is more common in NTN patients than in TN. Survival of patients with low expression of AR is lower. The test is also relatively inexpensive, and it could be possible to be checked in all patients with TN breast cancer all over the hospitals. On the basis of the recent results, we suggest performing a new multicenter study for the treatment of AR-positive TN patients who failed conventional therapies with AR based hormone therapy.