Expression of autocrine motility factor receptor (AMFR) in human breast and lung invasive micropapillary carcinomas

The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinicopathological significance of autocrine motility factor receptor (AMFR) expression in a variety of human invasive micropapillary carcinomas (IMPC). AMFR expression was compared in 111 samples of a variety of human IMPCs which had intrinsic non-micropapillary components and with 26 cases of control pulmonary adenocarcinoma (CPA, carcinoma without an IMPC component) by immunohistochemistry (IHC). In the 137 cases analysed, AMFR expression was significantly elevated in the IMPC components compared to the non-IMPC components (p = .005) and normal tissues (p < .001). AMFR expression was also higher in the IMPC samples compared to their intrinsic non-IMPC components (p = .0234). Between the 69 cases of lung IMPC and 26 cases of CPA, AMFR expression was notably higher in the IMPC components than in the CPA components (p = .0455). However, there was no significant difference between the non-IMPC components in the lung and the CPA components (p = .4584). Moreover, in breast cancer, elevated AMFR expression was not significantly correlated with mixed type or pure type IMPC (p = .5969) or with age, gender, T stage, or lymph node metastasis (LNM). Between IMPC and CPA of the lung, there was no statistical significance in age, T stage, and LNM, where AMFR expression was higher in IMPC (p = .0071). Thus this study demonstrated that AMFR was overexpressed in a variety of human IMPC components compared with non-micropapillary components. This suggests that AMFR expression is a potential new prognostic indicator for different types of human IMPC, which might thus be a new therapeutic target.