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American Journal of Pathology, Vol 141, 1003-1012, Copyright © 1992 by American Society for Investigative Pathology

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Cathepsin D in invasive ductal NOS breast carcinoma as defined by immunohistochemistry. No correlation with survival at 5 years

W Domagala, G Striker, A Szadowska, A Dukowicz, K Weber and M Osborn
Department of Biochemistry, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Gottingen, Germany.

Cathepsin D expression was assessed by immunohistochemistry in 59 node- negative and 77 node-positive infiltrative ductal not otherwise specified (NOS) breast carcinomas and compared with overall survival at 90 months. Cancer cells in 60% (81/136) of the tumors expressed cathepsin D. In the stroma of 33% (18 of 55) cathepsin D negative tumors, numerous strongly cathepsin D positive, benign macrophage-like cells were found. Multivariate analysis showed no significant correlation of cathepsin D expression and overall survival for all patients for node-negative and node-positive patients and for patients with vimentin-positive and -negative tumors. However, in node-negative but not in node-positive patients, a trend for better survival for patients with cathepsin-positive vimentin-negative tumors and worse survival for those with cathepsin-positive vimentin-positive tumors was noted. Due to the low number of patients in these subgroups, neither trend reached significance. Cathepsin D expression was independent of patient age, size, and histologic grade of tumor, and vimentin expression. However, in the node-positive group, negative correlation of cathepsin D and vimentin expression was found. We suggest that prognostic significance of cathepsin D in infiltrative ductal NOS breast carcinomas may be associated with the pathway of its synthesis rather than with its mere presence in tumor cells.

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