Androgen receptor in relation to progesterone receptor (AR/PR ratio) in non-metastatic hormonal positive, Her2neu negative breast cancer

Background: The impact of estrogen/progesterone receptors (ER/PR) is well-established with respect to therapy and prognosis of breast carcinoma. However, the role of androgen receptor (AR) expression is varying among breast cancer subtypes.
Objectives: The objective of this study is evaluating relation between androgen receptor to progesterone receptor in non-metastatic hormonal positive Her2-neu negative breast cancer patients.
Patients and methods: This study included 100 female patients with breast carcinoma, whose hormone receptor status data were available. Demographic and histopathologic details were retrieved. Immunohistochemistry for AR was done and considered positive if >10% of tumor cells showed nuclear staining.
Results: We evaluated 100 female patients with primary breast cancer by using immunohistochemistry. Of the 100 cases, 51 cases had an AR/PR ratio<1.63 and 49 cases had an AR/PR ratio ≥1.63. In the descriptive analysis, patients with a higher AR/PR ratio carried early disease stage and they frequently had negativity for perineural invasion (p value<0.005).
Conclusion: There is no significant association between AR/PR ratio with overall survival and disease free survival. AR/PR could be used to identify patients with different prognosis, their real value needs to be better clarified in different BC settings through prospective studies and larger number of patients.