Stromal, rather than epithelial cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression is associated with overall survival of breast cancer patients

BMC Cancer

Justyna Urban²  Łukasz Kuźbicki²  Grzegorz Szatkowski²  Agata Stanek-Widera¹  Dariusz Lange¹  Barbara W Chwirot² 

[1] Department of Tumor Pathology, Maria Skłodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology, Wybrzeże Armii Krajowej 15, 44-101 Gliwice, Poland

[2] Department of Medical Biology, Faculty of Biology and Environment Protection, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Lwowska 1, 87-100 Toruń, Poland

关键词: Patient survival;    Tumour stroma;    Breast cancer;    Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2);   

Others  :  1121008
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2407-14-732

 received in 2014-06-08, accepted in 2014-09-23,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Prognostic value of enhanced COX-2 expression in breast cancer has been controversial for a long time. The opinions vary widely between studies. Moreover, significant majority of studies considered only COX-2 expression in cancer epithelial cells.

Methods

We examined the prognostic value of COX-2 expression in both epithelial and stromal cells using three different antibodies and three algorithms of immunohistochemical scoring and categorizing the tumours into COX-2 overexpressing groups.

Results

Our results demonstrate that COX-2 expression in stromal cells is independent prognostic factor indicating worse overall survival of patients. Such a result was obtained using each of the three antibodies and two of the algorithms used for evaluations of COX-2 expression levels. We also show that immunohistochemical assessment of the prognostic value of COX-2 expression in cancer epithelial cells depends to a large extent on a combination of primary antibodies and algorithms used for determination of the COX-2 over-expressing tumours.

Conclusions

Our results indicate that stromal expression of COX-2 is independent prognostic parameter relatively insensitive to variations in sensitivity of antibodies used for its determination. Wide scatter of the published results concerning prognostic value of COX-2 expression in breast cancer tissues seems to be due to a large extent to multitude of antibodies and scoring algorithms used by different groups.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Urban et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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