Study on Expressions of Androgen Receptor and Apoptosis in Human Metastatic Prostate Adenocarcinoma

Chung, Do Young; Cho, Jae Heung

Abstract

PURPOSE: Study on expressions of androgen receptor(AR) and apoptosis in metastatic prostate cancer before antiandrogen therapy may give rise to clue informations that could enable to predict the heterogeneity of androgen dependence. MATERIALS AND METHODS: With paraffin blocks of metastatic prostate cancer(n=31), benign prostate hyperplasia (n=16) and normal prostate(n=5), characteristics of apoptosis positivity and nuclear androgen repceptor expression were evaluated. Prostate cancers were also grouped by Gleason sum into group I(well differentiated;n=7)), II(moderately differentiated;n=9) and III (poorly differentiated; n=15). Apoptosis was expressed by in-situ hybridization technique and AR was evlauated by immunohistochemical method. RESULTS: Study with statistics of median positive rate of apoptosis and AR among three groups, revealed no relationship between expression of apoptosis and AR (correlation coefficient :CE=-0.523, p=0.362 in normal; CE=-0.406, p=0.119 in BPH; CE=-0.022, p=0.905 in cancer). Also there was no correlation between expression of apoptosis and AR in subgroups of cancer. In log-rank survival test, survivals according to the expression of apoptosis showed good survival rate in group of high positive(p=0.013), whereas study of AR showed no significant findings. Histologic findings of apoptotic cell in cancer were different from that of normal and BPH, which distributions of apoptotic cells were even in normal and BPH, but in cancer, these were uneven and collected patterns, which might mean the cell collections of androgen dependent or not. CONCLUSIONS: Good survival in group of high posive apoptosis and eneven collections of apoptotic cells in cancer may have important implications for solving the problems that could predict the heterogeneity of androgen dependence in prostate cancer before antiandrogen therapy, although study of AR is not sufficient to predict the heterogeneity of prostate cancer.