Expression and clinical significance of Clusterin protein in invasive ductal breast cancer

Objective To investigate the expression and the clinical significance of Clusterin protein in invasive ductal breast cancer.Methods The expression of Clusterin protein in 70 cases of invasive ductal breast cancer,20 cases of breast hyperplasia,and 10 cases of adjacent normal breast tissue was examined with SP immunohistochemistry (IHC),and their correlation with some clinicopathological parameters were studied.Results Clusterin expression was detected in 71.4％of breast cancer tissues,which was significantly higher than that in benign lesions (20.0 ％) and adjacent normal tissues (0) (x2 =17.143,P ＜ 0.05; x2 =19.048,P ＜ 0.05).Clusterin expression in breast cancer was relevant to the histological grade (x2 =5.233,P ＜ 0.05),lymph node metastasis (x2 =4.677,P ＜ 0.05),and the progression in the clinical stage (x2 =4.667,P ＜ 0.05),but irrelevant to the age (x2 =0.024,P ＞ 0.05) and tumor size (x2 =0.406,P ＞ 0.05).Clusterin expression was negatively correlated to the expression of ER and PR in breast cancer tissues (r =-0.362,P ＜ 0.05 and r =-0.290,P ＜ 0.05,respectively),but uncorrelated with C-erbB-2 expression (r =0.129,P ＞ 0.05).Conclusion Clusterin overexpressed in breast cancer tissues suggests an important role of clusterin in invasive ductal breast cancer carcinogenesis and development through inhibition of cell apoptosis. It may become new clinical diagnosis marker for breast cancer and novel target for breast cancer therapy. Key words: Carcinoma, ductal, breast; Clusterin; Immunohistochemistry