Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2) and p53 protein expression are interdependent in breast cancer but not associated with clinico-pathological surrogate subtypes, tumor aggressiveness and patient survival.

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In the last decade, different molecular subtypes of breast cancer have been proposed. Although displaying appreciable association with disease prognosis and the prognostic value of cytotoxic and endocrine therapeutic modalities, the subtypes seem to fail at completely explaining disease behavior and response to treatment. Molecules such as those of the cyclocooxigenase (COX) family, currently composed of three entities (COX 1, 2 and 3) have been shown to be associated with breast carcinogenesis, and the analysis of p53 expression in breast tumors may also offer some additional prognostic clues. Our study is aimed at assessing COX2 and p53 expression in these clinico-pathological surrogate subtypes, and to evaluate whether the expression of these molecules can help further explain the variability in prognosis still found within the clinico-pathological subtypes groups of breast cancer. MethodsA total of 183 breast cancer samples were obtained from women treated at the Womeńs Hospital of Campinas State University, Campinas, Brazil, between June 2008 and January 2011. Immunohistochemistry was performed to detect the expression of ER, PR, ki67, COX2, and p53 and the HER2 status of the 183 specimens was assessed using FISH. Two COX2 staining thresholds were used to define COX2 positivity: low threshold (LT): moderate and intense staining were considered positive; high-threshold (HT): only intense staining was considered positive. ResultsThere was no trend in COX2 overexpression from Luminal A-like to Triple-negative subtypes. By contrast, p53 was expressed in roughly 67% of the Luminal A-like tumors, 50% of the Luminal B-like HER2 positive tumors, 60.9% of the Luminal B-like HER2 negative, approximately 82% of the HER2 positive (non-luminal) and 87% of the Triple-negative tumors (p for trends=0.06). There was a significantly higher proportion of COX2 positive (LT) tumors (66.9%) when p53 was also positive compared to when the tumor was negative for p53 (in which case only18.0% of the tumors were positive for COX2; p<0.001). Neither marker was found to be associated with patients‘ survival. Conclusions: There seems to be a positive association between the expressions of COX2 and p53. Otherwise, neither the expression of COX nor that of p53 was associated with clinico-pathological subtypes, tumor features and prognosis. It seems to be too early to elect the detection of COX2 using IHC as prognostic or predictive tool, but incipient evidence points toward a possible role for the marker.