Background: Extra-mammary Paget's disease (EMPD) is a rare neoplasm of epithelial origin, whose precise incidence is not clear. Starting from what is already known, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate in male and female patients the immunohistochemical expression of biological markers that could serve as potential prognostic/therapeutic factors, including only human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/neu), Estrogen Receptor (ER), Progesterone Receptor (PR), and Androgen Receptor (AR).
Methods: A literature search was performed of the PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases for English-language studies published from January 2000 to June 2020.
Results: A total of 27 studies with 713 patients assessed the role of HER2/neu, AR, ER, and PR expression in male and female with EMPD. The overall rate of HER2/neu expression was 30%, the expression's rate for ER and AR was 13% and 40%, respectively, and the overall rate for PR was 8%. The subgroup analysis revealed that there is a different expression of molecular markers between male and female patients.
Conclusions: This study revealed that AR status and HER2/neu overexpression/amplification have been shown as two fundamental pathogenetic pathways in both female and male patients affected by EMPD.
Keywords: HER2; androgen receptor; estrogen receptor; extra-mammary Paget disease; immunohistochemistry; progesterone receptor; vulvar cancer.