|
526
Potential Prognostic Role of HER-4, Heregulin
and JNK-P38 in Patients with Stage II Breast Cancer Treated with
Doxorubicin-Based Adjuvant Chemotherapy. Francisco J. Esteva,
Gabriel N Hortobagyi, Terry L Smith, Shang-Ying Liang, Lajos
Pusztai, Aysegul A Sahin, Aman U Buzdar, Sarah S Bacus, UT MD
Anderson Cancer Ctr, Houston, TX; Quantitative Diagnostics Lab,
Chicago, IL.
The purpose of this exploratory study was to evaluate the
prognostic role of EGFR, HER2, HER3, HER4, Heregulin, MDR, MIB, P53,
phosphorylated P38 (P-P38), P-MAPK, and P-HER2 in patients with
breast cancer treated with adjuvant doxorubicin-based chemotherapy.
Protein expression was analysed by quantitative immunohistochemistry
in paraffin-embedded breast cancer tissue from 35 patients. Patients
whose tumors expressed high levels of HER-4 and Heregulin had a
worse 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) compared with patients with
low levels of these proteins. The opposite was observed for
phosphorylated P38, where high levels were associated with improved
DFS. {table} The associations observed between the expression of
these proteins and DFS were not explained by other known prognostic
factors. In conclusion, this study suggests that HER-4, Heregulin
and P-P38 may have prognostic value in patients with early stage
breast cancer. A larger study is needed to confirm or refute this
hypothesis.
|
