Lack of prognostic significance of adiponectin immunohistochemical expression in patients with triplenegative 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.