Prognostic significance of P-glycoprotein expression in mastocarcinoma

Objective To investigate the relationship between the expression of multidrug resistance gene P-Glycoprotein(PGP) and the clinicpathological characteristics and the prognosis in primary breast cancer patients.Methods The expression of PGP in 60 breast cancer patients was determined by immunohistochemistry on formalin-fixed,paraffin-embedded tumor section.Results ①PGP expression was observed in 49 of 60 samples(81.7%).② No relation could be established between the expression of PGP and other clinicophathological parameters.③Kaplan Meier analyses revealed that patients with PGP-negative carcinomas had prolongations of overall survival(OS) and disease-free survival(DFS).④In multivariate Cox regression analyses,PGP expression only associated with OS,and did not with DFS.In addition,tumor size,lymph node metastasis and ER were independent prognostic factors for DFS and OS(P 0.05).Conclusion Our results suggest that LRP is frequently expressed in primary breast cancer,and PGP might be used as one of the markers for poor prognosis in patients with breast cancer.