Plasminogen activator expression and steroid hormone receptors in female breast cancer: a multifactorial study

In order to evaluate the relationship of plasminogen activator (PA) activity to the expression of estrogen (ER) and progesterone (PR) receptors, we assayed primary tumor specimens from 121 cases of female breast cancer. Other clinical and histopathological variables were also investigated with respect to their possible association with PA activity in the samples. Statistical correlations were examined by stratified analysis techniques and by multiple regression methods. PA activity was higher in tumors which were ER+PR+ than in those exhibiting other subsets of joint receptor expression, a finding which was particularly predominant in tumors from post-menopausal women. Of the other variables examined, only disease stage, nodal status and vascular infiltration presented marginal positive statistical associations with PA activity, although this was not confirmed by multivariate analysis. The latter technique showed that the presence of PR was sufficient to explain the variation in PA levels. However, ER emerged as the sole significantly explanatory factor when ER+PR- patients were removed from analysis. Both PR and age (negatively) were independent contributory factors for PA activity in the analysis of post-menopausal women. None of the variables examined emerged as being significantly associated with PA when data from pre-menopausal patients were used. These findings indicate that PA activity in breast tumor samples is statistically associated with the expression of functional estradiol receptors, although to a lesser extent than PR.