Multivariate analysis of oestrogen receptor alpha, pS2, metallothionein and CD24 expression in invasive breast cancers

Determination of oestrogen receptor alpha (ER) represents at present the most important predictive factor in breast cancers. Data of ours and of other authors suggest that promising predictive/prognostic factors may also include pS2, metallothionein (MT) and CD24. Present study aimed at determining prognostic and predictive value of immunohistochemical determination of ER, pS2, MT, and CD24 expression in sections originating from 104 patients with breast cancer. An univariate and multivariate analysis was performed. Both univariate and multivariate analyses demonstrated that cytoplasmic-membranous expression of CD24 (CD24c-m) represents a strong unfavourable prognostic factor in the entire group and in most of the subgroups of patients. In several subgroups of the patients also a prognostic value was demonstrated of elevated expression of pS2 and of membranous expression of CD24. Our studies demonstrated that all patients with good prognostic factors (higher ER and pS2 expressions, lower MT expression, CD24c-m negativity) survived total period of observation (103 months). The study documented that cytoplasmic-membranous expression of CD24 represented an extremely strong unfavourable prognostic factor in breast cancer. Examination of the entire panel of the studied proteins permitted to select a group of patients of an exceptionally good prognosis.