Background: Breast carcinoma ranks the first among malignant tumours in females and is the chief cause of cancer-related mortality. Androgen in implicated in the induction of proliferation and growth of mammary cells through binding to their corresponding receptors. Androgens influence the risk of acquiring breast cancer through either direct binding to androgen receptors (AR) or indirectly through their transformation to estradiol or competing for steroid binding proteins.
Aim: To study the expression of AR in various breast cancer subtypes and to elucidate its clinical significance by correlating it with clinicopathological parameters.
Methods: One hundred and fifty breast cancer cases were studied using AR immunohistochemistry, and its expression was correlated with different clinicopathologic parameters and with ER, PR, Her-2/neu and Ki 67 expression.
Results: AR was expressed in 91 breast carcinoma cases out of 150 examined. There was a statistically significant correlation between AR expression and tumour size, mitotic count, tumour necrosis, infiltrative borders, the hormonal status of the tumour and subsequently luminal subtypes (p < 0.05). A subset of studied TNBC (34.6%) also expressed AR. On the other hand, there was no significant correlation between AR expression and other clinicopathological parameters.
Conclusion: Positive AR immunostaining was associated with favourable prognostic factors and luminal subtypes (A&B). Also, a subset of TNBC cases showed positive AR expression. These results introduce the current potent, next-generation AR- antagonist as possible target therapy in breast cancer. Further researches on AR expression in breast cancer are recommended on a larger scale with follow up and survival to validate the current results.
Keywords: Androgen receptors; Breast cancer; Hormonal status; Immunohistochemistry; Luminal; Triple-negative.