Expressions and clinical significance of uPA and nm23 in human breast carcinoma tissues

OBJECTIVE:To study the expressions and clinical significance of urokinade-type plasminogen(uPA) and nm23 gene in human breast carcinoma.METHODS: The expression levels of uPA and nm23 protein in 98 breast carcinoma patients were detected with the immunohistochemistry SP method.RESULTS: The positive rates of uPA and nm23 proteins in breast carcinoma were 65.3% and 31.6% respectively.The positive rate of uPA(37%) in high differential carcinoma was significantly lower than those in intermediate and low differential carcinoma(75% and 77.1% respectively),P0.05,but two positive rates of nm23 were not so in breast carcinoma(P0.05).The positive rate of uPA(78.3%) in carcinoma with axillary lymph node metastasis was significantly higher than that without axillary lymph node metastasis(44.7%).The positive rate of nm23 proteins(50%) in carcinoma without axillary lymph node metastasis was significantly higher than that with axillary lymph node metastasi(20%).The expression of uPA had a negative correlation with the expression of nm23.They had no relation to tumor size.CONCLUSIONS: uPA and nm23 may contribute significantly to breast carcinoma invasion and axillary lymph node metastasis.The simultaneous detection of the expressions of both uPA and nm23 may serve as a marker of lymph node metastasis and evaluate the prognosis of breast carcinoma.