Prevalence of androgen receptors in invasive breast carcinoma and its relation with estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and Her2/neu expression.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Although Breast carcinoma had many targeted biomarkers for its treatment, however, it is a heterogeneous disease with different outcomes and need new markers especially for the triple negative group when estrogen receptor, progesterone receptors and Her2/neu are negative. Androgen receptor is a new target with unclear role. The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of androgen receptors in invasive breast cancer and tries to elucidate its relation to some well recognized clinicopathological and immunohistochemical markers. MATERIALS AND METHODS One hundred and fifty cases of invasive breast carcinoma were evaluated for type, grade and stage and studied immunohistochemically for estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, Her2/neu and androgen expression. Androgen receptor expression was correlated with histopathological factors and the three studied markers separately then the studied cases were classified into three groups according to estrogen, progesterone receptor and Her2/neu expression and correlated with androgen receptor expression. RESULTS Androgen receptor was expressed in 71% of breast cancer cases. Its expression is associated significantly with both the stage and the grade. Also it was significantly associated with estrogen receptor and Her2/neu expression. It was expressed in a significant number of triple negative breast carcinoma, in Her2/neu positive cases and in estrogen negative cases which indicate that androgen receptor could be a new target for the treatment of these groups. CONCLUSIONS Although the impact of androgen receptor on breast cancer outcomes had not been clearly established, this result may provide evidence that androgen receptor is a good prognostic and predictive marker.