The small heat shock protein HSP27 is not an independent prognostic marker in axillary lymph node-negative breast cancer patients
Heat shock protein 27 (hsp27) belongs to the family of heat shock proteins and is thought to be involved in thermotolerance, cell proliferation, drug resistance, and chaperone processes. The aim of this study was to investigate whether hsp27 levels are correlated with clinical outcome in axillary ly...
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Published in | Clinical cancer research Vol. 2; no. 7; pp. 1199 - 1206 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Philadelphia, PA
American Association for Cancer Research
01.07.1996
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Heat shock protein 27 (hsp27) belongs to the family of heat shock proteins and is thought to be involved in thermotolerance,
cell proliferation, drug resistance, and chaperone processes. The aim of this study was to investigate whether hsp27 levels
are correlated with clinical outcome in axillary lymph node-negative breast cancer patients. We describe a Western blot study
measuring hsp27 levels in 425 patients and an immunohistochemistry (IHC) study analyzing 788 patients. Results obtained by
both methods were concordant. Univariate survival analysis was performed considering hsp27 either as an optimally dichotomized
variable or as a continuous variable. Additional data include age at biopsy, tumor size, estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone
receptor status, tumor ploidy and percentage of cells in S phase, and adjuvant therapy. hsp27 levels correlated positively
with ER status (P = 0.0001 in Western blot and IHC study), progesterone receptor status (P = 0.0001 in Western blot and IHC
study), and aneuploidy (Western blot study, P = 0.0012; IHC study, P = 0.0004) but not with tumor size (Western blot study,
P = 0.69; IHC, P = 0.53) or S phase (Western blot study, P = 0.19; IHC study, P = 0.38). Overall, there was no relationship
between hsp27 expression and disease-free survival (Western blot study, P = 0.70/0.54; IHC, P = 0.47/0.30) or overall survival
(Western blot study, P = 0.16/0.15; IHC, P = 0.46/0.78). Exploratory subset analyses defined by ER status and use of adjuvant
treatment indicated that in ER+/untreated patients, high hsp27 levels correlated modestly with shorter disease-free survival
(Western blot, P = 0.04/0.04; IHC, P = 0.11/0. 03). hsp27 is not a useful prognostic marker for the clinic in axillary lymph
node-negative patients. However, the finding of modest prognostic value of hsp27 in the subgroup of ER+/untreated patients
raises new questions about the biological function of hsp27 in breast cancer. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1078-0432 1557-3265 |