Pcna Immunostaining in Breast Cancer

Abstract

Expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) has been shown to be of prognostic value in patients with certain types of cancer. The aim of this study was to determine if the abundance of PCNA is inversely correlated with survival of patients with breast cancer. Paraffin blocks were available from 68 patients, all of whom had been followed clinically for at least 5 years. Sections from 20 patients showed no reactivity to PCNA and were excluded from the study because it was not possible to distinguish between true negatives and false negatives (those due to poor fixation of the original specimens). The PCNA index (the number of stained cancer cells as a percentage of the total number of cancer cells present) was calculated for the remaining 48 patients. Results were analysed by Wilcoxon's rank sum test (two tailed) and Pearson's correlation coefficient. There was no statistical difference between the PCNA indices of those patients dead from their disease within 5 years of diagnosis compared with those alive and without signs of breast cancer at 5 years. There was also no correlation between PCNA index and size of the cancer, involvement of axillaly lymph nodes, time to recurrence or time to death. There was, however, a significant correlation between PCNA index and histological grade (P= 0.029). It appears that PCNA staining of stored paraffin sections is of little prognostic value in patients with breast cancer.

Rapid and prognostically valid quantification of immunohistochemical reactions by immunohistometry of the most positive tumour focus. A prospective follow-up study on breast cancer using antibodies against MIB-1, PCNA, ER, and PR

“…36 In some studies, PCNA revealed only slight, or even no prognostic relevance; [37][38][39] in others, a high prognostic relevance has been documented, as in our study. 16,[40][41][42] Furthermore, we did not find as high a prognostic relevance for the oestrogen receptor status as described previously.…”

Expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and Ki‐67 in soft tissue sarcoma. Is prognostic significance histotype‐specific?

“…One value of these two antibodies is that by recognizing fixation-and embedding-resistant epitopes on PCNA and Ki-67 they allow the retrospective study of these antigens in archival material. There has been a plethora of information regarding PCNA and Ki-67 expression in different tumors (de Riese et al 1993;Gerdes 1990;Munck et al 1994;Oda et al 1993;Sahin et al 1991;Teixeira et al 1994). Experience of PCNA and Ki-67 expression in soft tissue sarcoma is, however, limited with comparatively few sizeable reports in the indexed literature over the last 5 years.…”

“…This observation has led to the examination of PCNA expression in neoplastic cells (Hall et al 1990;Robbins et al 1987) because of the association between proliferation and malignancy (Buick & Pollak 1984). Subsequent studies have shown a correlation between an abundant ex-pression of PCNA and unfavorable prognosis in various solid tumors (Cummings et al 1993;Oda et al 1993;Rosa et al 1992;Shimizu et al 1993) and hematological malignancies ( Klemi et al 1992). A review of the prognostic significance of PCNA expression in 48 high-grade malignant fibrous histiocytomas demonstrated an unfavorable outcome with high expression (Dreinhiyer et al.…”

“…Ki-67 is another proliferation marker that is synthesized during the proliferative phase of the cell cycle (Gerdes et al 1991). The relationship of Ki-67 expression to proliferation in various malignancies (de Riese et al 1993;Gerdes 1990;Suhin et ul. 1991) has been evaluated and prognostic indices have been correlated with survival.…”

Immunohistochemical localization of cathepsin D, proliferating cell nuclear antigen and epidermal growth factor receptor in human breast carcinoma analysed by computer image analyser: correlation with histological grade and metastatic behaviour

“…In breast cancer, a high PCNA immunoreactivity has been reported to correlate with the mitotic rate, the high histological grade and the presence of lymph node metastases 22,23 . However, the findings still appear to be contradictory regarding the prognostic value of PCNA in breast cancer [22][23][24] .…”