Lack of prognostic significance of adiponectin immunohistochemical expression in patients with riplenegative breast cancer

Abstract

Introduction: Triple-negative breast cancers (TNBCs) - which lack the expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2) - have no established markers that can be used for prognostic stratification. As adiponectin has been previously implicated in a more aggressive phenotype of primary breast cancer, we explored the relation between adiponectin immunohistochemical expression and prognosis in TNBCs. Material and methods: Immunohistochemical staining for adiponectin was performed in 38 TNBC patients. Disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) served as the main outcome measures. Results: Of the 38 TNBC patients, 18 (47%) had negative and 20 (53%) positive adiponectin immunohistochemical expression. We did not find any significant association between adipo- nectin immunohistochemical expression and the baseline characteristics. In addition, there were no associations between adiponectin immunohistochemical expression and prognosis. Conclusions: Although our results suggest that adiponectin immunohistochemical expression is not of prognostic significance in TNBCs, further studies are warranted to determine the role of this adipokine in breast cancer biology.