Amphiregulin and cripto overexpression in breast-cancer - relationship with prognosis and clinical and...

The expression of amphiregulin (AR) and cripto (CR-1), two recently identified growth factor peptides, has been evaluated in 196 mammary carcinomas, 13 biopsies of normal breast and 17 benign breast lesions using immunohistochemical methods. Strong immunostaining with AR antibody indicating elevated protein expression was seen in more than 90% of cases of mammary carcinoma whereas with the CR-1 antibody strong staining was seen only in about 77% of cases. No significant relationship could be demonstrated between AR and CR-1 overexpression and traditional prognostic factors such as tumour grade, nodal status and steroid hormone receptor status.