Prognosis significance of protease as a function of ER subsets.

e21027 Background: Estrogen receptors (ER) and invasive protease such as urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA), its inhibitor plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1 (PAI-1), cathepsin D (CathD), and thymidine kinase (TK) are known prognostic factors in breast cancer (BC). The advantage of using combination of these proteases to ER to identify BC subsets of differential prognosis was evaluated. Methods: Analysis of a prospective collected clinical database. uPA, PAI-1, CathD, and TK levels were prospectively measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in tumor tissue extracts of 316 patients with primary BC treated surgically. Distribution and relation between these factors and ER were analyzed. Survival outcome according to identified BC profiles were compared. Results: The levels between ER and PAI-1 were inversely correlated (r = -0.17, p = 0.003). Similar observation was made between ER levels and uPA (r = -0.14, p = 0. 01). The quantitative values of ER were not significantly correlated with TK...