Triple-negative breast cancer: from classical clinicopathological features to androgen receptor profile

Vol. 65 No. 2, 2024

ROMANIAN JOURNAL of MORPHOLOGY and EMBRYOLOGY

Iulian Prutianu, Simona Eliza Giusca, Bogdan Gafton, Mariana Bianca Chifu, Cristina Terinte, Alexandra Antonescu, Larisa Popovici, Irina-Draga Caruntu

Triple-negative breast cancer (BC) represents an extensively analyzed entity to establish the overall framework of clinicopathological characteristics, with an impact on defining prognostic and predictive factors. The relationship between triple-negative BC and androgen receptor (AR) is far from being clarified. We aimed to evaluate the classical clinicopathological spectrum that characterized a triple-negative BC, focusing on AR expression. The study group comprised 124 cases of triple-negative BC. The main clinicopathological parameters were extracted from medical records. The immunohistochemical (IHC) exam was run using the following antibodies: anti-estrogen receptor (ER), anti-progesterone receptor (PR), anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER2/neu), anti-Ki67 and anti-AR. AR immunoexpression was assessed as absent (completely negative) or present (unrelated to percentages and intensity). Data were statistically analyzed. AR expression was positive in 78 (63%) cases and negative in 46 (37%) cases. Among the study group, 28 cases exhibited an AR percentage ranging from 1% to 10%, 15 cases showed a percentage between 11% and 50%, while 12 cases had AR values between 51% and 75% and 23 cases fell within the AR range of 76% to 100%. No significant differences between AR immunoexpression (negative versus positive), clinicopathological characteristics and survival parameters were found. Statistically significant differences were registered between histological type, tumor stage, distant metastasis, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), treatment and residual cancer burden (RCB), and survival parameters. Thus, our results sustain that AR does not affect the biological behavior of triple-negative BC.

Corresponding author: Simona Eliza Giusca, Associate Professor, MD, PhD; e-mail: simonaelizagiusca@gmail.com; Mariana Bianca Chifu, Assistant Professor, MD, PhD; e-mail: bianca.manole@ymail.com

DOI: 10.47162/RJME.65.2.07 Download PDF
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