Quantification of prostate-specific antigen immunoreactivity in human breast cyst fluids

Abstract

The frequency of gross cystic breast disease in premenopausal women and its possible association with increased breast cancer risk emphasises the importance of investigations relating to breast cyst fluid composition. In order to contribute to a better analysis of this medium, we have measured the presence of prostate-specific antigen immuno-reactivity in sixty-four human breast cyst fluids. Data analyses show that 35% of samples presented a level of this antigen < 0.05 micrograms/L, whereas 42 out of 64 cysts show a significant increase in the mean value of metabolically active apocrine cysts when compared to flattened cysts (p < 0.01). We report the first evidence that breast epithelium of gross cysts produces, secretes, and accumulates large amounts of prostate-specific antigen, a glycoprotein produced by prostatic tissue but recently detected in breast tumours, normal tissues, and during pregnancy. The production and intracystic accumulation of this serine protease in biosynthetically active apocrine type cyst can play a feasible role in the natural history gross cystic breast disease as well as in the mechanism of cyst formation, enlargement, and transformation.

Prostate-specific antigen in the breast

“…A large proportion of this PSA is complexed with ACT , Mannello et al 1997c, which is consistent with a previous report that BCF contains ACT (Mannello et al 1994). BCF can be classified into Type 1 (high potassium levels, derived from apocrine cysts) and Type 2 (high sodium levels derived from cysts with flattened epithelia) and it has been reported that PSA levels are higher in the Type 1 BCF (Mannello et al 1996, Parish et al 1996, although another study found no significant difference (Lai et al 1996).…”

Quantification of pepsinogen C and prostaglandin D synthase in breast cyst fluid and their potential utility for cyst type classification

“…Also, high PEPC levels in breast cyst fluid were found in women who were aspirated on the first half of their menstrual cycle. Recently, it was demonstrated that the production and intracystic accumulation of PSA, and in particular the free form of PSA, was associated with the apocrine/Type I cyst (13,24). In this report, we also associated increased levels of PEPC in cyst fluid with the apocrine/Type I cyst.…”

Measurement of prostate-specific antigen in detection of benign or malignant breast disease in women

“…Abbreviations as in Table 1; NA = not analysed as fibroadenomas and breast cysts (Borchert et al, 1997a;Borchert et al, 1997b). However, discordant data concerning the clinical significance of PSA immunoreactivity in breast tumour cytosols (Astill et al, 1996;Dibbelt et al, 1996;Wu et al, 1995) and in breast cysts (Filella et al, 1996;Lai et al, 1996;Mannello et al, 1996) as well as the diagnostic value of serum total PSA in BC (Giai et al, 1995) and breast cyst disease (Filella et al, 1996) have been presented. Most of the earlier results have been obtained using a time-resolved immunofluorometric (TR-FIA) PSA assay (Borchert et al, 1997b;Diamandis et al, 1994;Ferguson et al, 1996;Melegos and Diamandis, 1996;Yu et al, 1995aYu et al, , 1996Yu et al, , 1998 which is not commercially available.…”