Immunohistochemical expression of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) in canine mammary tissues

Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) has been extensively studied in human breast cancer; however, systematic studies of EGFR protein expression in canine mammary gland tumours are lacking. Therefore, we evaluated its immunohistochemical expression in a series of 136 canine mammary tumours and representative areas of adjacent normal and hyperplastic mammary tissue and investigated a possible correlation between EGFR overexpression and several clinicopathological parameters and survival. In normal and hyperplastic canine mammary glands, EGFR expression was consistently observed in myoepithelial cells, with luminal cells usually negative. In tumour tissues, EGFR overexpression was found in 9 benign (19.6%) and 38 malignant (42.2%) lesions, with EGFR positivity significantly related with malignancy. Besides animal age and tumour size, there were no significant associations between other clinicopathological parameters and EGFR overexpression. On survival analysis, tumours with EGFR overexpression showed a reduced disease-free and overall survival; however these associations failed to reach statistically significant levels.