Expression of thymidylate synthase in breast cancer and its correlation with fluorouracil sensibility and patients’ prognosis

Abstract

Objective To investigate the expression of thymidylate synthase (TS) in breast cancer and its relationship with fluorouracil sensibility and patients’ prognosis. Methods TS expression in 80 cases of breast cancer was measured by RT-QPCR. The chemotherapy (CAF) was given. Relationship between TS and fluorouracil sensibility was studied, as well as the relation between TS expression and prognosis of breast cancer. Result Positive expression of TS gene was detected by Q-PCR 1n 27.5% of the breast cancer specimens. The expression of TS had no relation with age, lymphatic metastasis, histological grade or clinical stage, while it was obviously correlated with HER2 (P<0.01) . The expression of TS had negative correlation with the antitumor effect of fluorouracil. The five-year survival rate of TS positive patients was lower than that of TS negative patients (P<0.01) . Conclusions Breast cancer patients with low expression of TS may benefit from fluorouracil. TS can be used as a molecule marker for predicting efficacy of breast cancer chemotherapy. Key words: Breast cancer; TS gene; Q-PCR; Fluorouracil