alpha B-crystallin is a useful marker for triple negative and basal breast cancers

作者：Tsang Julia Y S; Lai Michael W H; Wong Ken H Y; Chan Siu Ki; Lam Christopher C F; Tsang Alex K H; Yu Alex M C; Tan Puay Hoon; Tse Gary M^*

来源：Histopathology, 2012, 61(3): 378-386.

DOI：10.1111/j.1365-2559.2012.04234.x

• basal-like breast cancer
• immunohistochemistry
• alpha B-crystallin

Aims: Basal-like breast cancers (BLBCs), a breast cancer subtype with triple-negative status, pose significant problems in clinical management because of their aggressive behaviour. Recently, an association between alpha B-crystallin expression and BLBCs has been suggested, and we therefore investigated whether alpha B-crystallin could be a putative marker allowing BLBCs to be identified more accurately. Methods and results: We evaluated the expression of alpha B-crystallin and other biomarkers in 395 cases of breast carcinoma by immunohistochemistry, analysed the correlation of their expression with different breast cancer subtypes, and compared their sensitivity as well as specificity in identifying BLBCs. alpha B-crystallin expression was found to be correlated positively with basal markers and histological subtypes associated with BLBCs. A significant positive correlation of alpha B-crystallin expression was also found with triple-negative breast cancers (TNBC) (C = 0.409, P %26lt; 0.001) and BLBCs (C = 0.393, P %26lt; 0.001). Comparing alpha B-crystallin with other basal markers, only alpha B-crystallin demonstrated both high sensitivity (48.6%) and specificity (93.8%) as a TNBC marker. All other markers showed either a lower sensitivity of %26lt;40% or a lower specificity of %26lt;90%. alpha B-crystallin also demonstrated a high specificity (92.9%) and an even higher sensitivity (56.5%) for BLBCs. Conclusions: The findings indicated that alpha B-crystallin was a highly sensitive and specific marker for TNBCs and BLBCs.

• 出版日期2012-9
• 单位香港中文大学