This study aimed to examine the associations between
mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK), Akt, and
topoisomerase II expression and other well established clinical and pathological prognostic factors in patients with
breast cancer. A total of 42 women with
breast cancer who underwent
anthracycline based
chemotherapy were included in this retrospective study. Immunohistochemical methods were utilized to examine the expression of phosphorylated MAPK (pMAPK), phosphorylated Akt (pAkt), HER-2/neu and topoisomerase IIα (
topo IIα) in tissue blocks. Subsequently, the associations between pMAPK, pAkt, and topoisomerase IIα (
topo IIα) expression characteristics and disease stage (T and N),
tumor grade,
estrogen/progesteron receptor status, and HER-2/neu expression were explored. Median age of the patients was 63 years (range, 37-82). There was a significant association between N stage and topoisomerase IIα expression (P = 0.021), with increasing rates of positivity in higher grades: N0, 22.7%; N1, 11.1%; N2, 42.9%; N3, 100%. In addition,
topo IIα expression was higher in
estrogen receptor-positive versus
estrogen receptor-negative
tumors (50% vs. 0%, P = 0.0004) and MAPK expression was more frequent among progesteron receptor-positive versus negative
tumors (64.0 versus 20.0%, P = 0.027). Our results show that the tissue expression of
topo IIα and MAPK, which play a role in the intracellular signal pathways, is associated with certain established prognostic factors in
breast cancer. Further studies examining survival rates and involving larger sample populations are warranted to better define the importance of the observed associations.