Prognostic relevance of urokinase plasminogen activator and its inhibitors in patients with breast cancer
Napovedni pomen urokinaznega aktivatorja plazminogena in njegovih inhibitorjev pri bolnicah z rakom dojk

english

1999

volume 33, issue 1

Onkološki inštitut Ljubljana

Urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) and its inhibitors, PAI-1 and PAI-2, play an important role in iritercellular tissue degradation, thus promoting tumor cell invasion into the adjoining structures and metastasizing. Our studywas aimed to assess a possible prognostic value of uPA, PAI-1 and PAI-2 in a retrospective series of 87 patients with breast cancer stage I-III, whosecytosols were stored in the archives of the, Institute of Oncology in Ljubljana. The median follow-up was 35 months. The prognostic value of the established prognostic factors and uPA, PAI-1 and PAI-2 were evaluated by means of univariate statistical analysis and partial multivariate models. The obtained uPA values were very low and did not correlate with the disease free survival, whereas PAI-1 and PAI-2 significantly influenced the time to the first recurrence. Patients with PAI-1 values above 5 ng/mg proteins had statistically significantly worse disease free survival than the patients withlower PAI-1 values (58% vs. 85%). In the case of PAI-2, the situation wasjust the opposite: the patients with PAI-2 values exceeding 6.4 ng/mg proteins had statistically significantly better 3-year disease free survival than the patients with lower values (90% vs. 60%). Both, PAI-1 and PAl-2 retained their independent prognostic value, irrespective of the addition of the established prognostic factors to partial multivariate models, and only with locally advanced disease the prognostic value of PAI-1 was greater than that of PAI-2.

10.11.2023