Cell turnover in apocrine metaplasia and apocrine adenosis of the breast

Apocrine metaplasia (APM) is a common finding in the breast of postmenopausal women and is seen in a broad spectrum of lesions ranging from microscopic cysts to invasive apocrine carcinoma. Apocrine metaplasia within sclerosing adenosis is known as apocrine adenosis (AA) and is considered a benign lesion of the breast. Apocrine metaplasia and AA have been the subject of many studies; however, little is known about the dynamics of cell turnover in these lesions. Recent studies have shown that some forms of AA may show altered degree of proliferation along with altered expression of bcl-2 and bax proteins. In the current study, we investigate further aspects of apoptosis to help understand the mechanisms of cell turnover in AA and APM. To investigate cell turnover in APM and AA, immunohistochemistry was used to study the expression of the apoptotic markers Bak, Mcl-1, Bcl-x, and Bcl-x(L) in 45 cases of APM (13 cases of nonpapillary APM, 21 cases of simple papillary APM, and 11 cases of complex papillary APM). Also, 34 cases of AA (23 cases of non-atypical AA [NAA] and 11 cases of atypical AA [AAA]) were included in the study. The expression of hTERT and the proliferation marker Ki-67 were also determined. The TdT-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL) technique was used to study the apoptotic status in 28 cases of APM (12 cases nonpapillary APM and 16 cases of papillary APM including simple and complex forms) and 22 cases of AA (15 cases of NAA and 7 cases of AAA). The results showed that all cases studied by immunohistochemistry were positive for the expression of Bak, Mcl-1, Bcl-x, and Bcl-x(L) showing a pattern of staining similar to that seen in the normal breast epithelium. There was no relation between hTERT positivity and the degree of proliferation in any of the lesions studied. The TUNEL results revealed an apoptotic index (AI) of 0.4% and 0.2% in the papillary and nonpapillary groups of APM, respectively. There was no statistical significance between the AI of these 2 groups and that of the normal breast epithelium (0.3%). The average Ki-67 index in the nonpapillary group was 0.7%, whereas in the papillary group, a value of 4% was recorded. In the cases of AA, an AI of 0.4% and 0.3% in NAA and AAA, respectively, was seen. There was no statistical significance between the AI of these 2 groups and that of the normal breast epithelium (0.3%). The Ki-67 index was 5.2% and 6.6% in the NAA and AAA, respectively. The current results show that apoptosis is not a common event in APM and AA even in the presence of increased proliferation, which may render some of these lesions more susceptible to oncogenic changes. Further studies are needed to study other apoptotic pathways that may be involved in cell turnover in these lesions.