Relationship between immunohistochemical androgen receptor expression and clinicopathological parameters in triple negative breast cancer

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous group of diseases that are most common in women worldwide and consist of different biological subtypes. Triple negative breast cancer (TNMK) is a subset that characterized with the absence of ER, PR, and HER2 expression and distinct clinicopathologic features and response to treatment. The lack of targeted treatment options in TNMK with aggressive course worsens the prognosis. For this reason, new biomarkers that may be important for the prognosis and may direct the treatment are being investigated. The aim of this study is to investigate the clinicopathologic and immunohistochemical findings and prognostic effect of AR expression in TNMK and to emphasize the potential importance of AR in targeted therapy. Thirty patients who were diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer between the years of 2012 and 2015 in the Department of Pathology of Adnan Menderes University Medical Faculty were included. In the study, some parameters, thought to play a role in the prognosis of the tumors, and especially AR expression which may be an alternative for the new targeted treatment option, were evaluated. For this purpose, immunohistochemical AR was used. Result of statistical analysis, there was no significant difference between age and menopausal status and AR expression or lymphovascular invasion and lymph node involvement and AR expression. The difference between AR expression and Ki-67 expression was not statistically significant but it was found that p53 expression was more in AR negative cases and this difference was statistically significant. There was a statistically significant negative correlation between tumor grade and AR expression status, and this result was found to be consistent with the literature. Negative correlation was also found between stage and AR expression. While the relationship between tumor diameter and receptor expression was statistically significant, the difference between the stage, due to lymph node involvement, and AR was not statistically significant.