Wwox expression may predict benefit from adjuvant tamoxifen in randomized breast cancer patients

Abstract

Reduced or absent Wwox expression has recently been associated with tamoxifen resistance in breast cancer and has also been proposed as a candidate predictive marker for treatment. We aimed to investigate the correlation of Wwox expression with the outcome of tamoxifen treatment by examining tissues from 912 randomized breast cancer patients. Paraffin-embedded tissues from patient tumors were arranged on tissue microarray, and Wwox protein was stained using immunohistochemistry. After microscopic examination, the results were analyzed with Cox regression, Kaplan-Meier survival curves and the log-rank test. In the group of cases having a tumor absent for Wwox expression, there was no difference in recurrence-free survival between treated and untreated patients (P=0.81). For treated cases with a tumor expressing moderate or strong Wwox protein, recurrence-free survival was improved (P=0.001 and P=0.003, respectively). The test for interaction between Wwox and treatment response demonstrated a decreased risk of recurrence for treated patients with a moderate or strong Wwox expression (HR=0.31, 95% CI 0.10-0.98 and HR=0.28, 95% CI 0.08-0.97, respectively). Our results indicate that patients with high expression of Wwox may gain more benefit from treatment with tamoxifen.