Expression and correlation of Fascin-1 and EGFR in hormone receptor-positive breast cancer

Objective To explore the expression and correlation of Fascin-1 and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. Methods The immunohistochemical technique, EnVision method, was used to evaluate the expression of Fascin-1 and EGFR in 294 cases of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, which contains 290 cases of estrogen receptor (ER) positive and 244 cases of progestrone receptor (PR) positive. According to ER, PR, Epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), and Ki-67 status, all cases of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer were categorized into 2 subtypes: 160 cases of luminal A and 134 cases of luminal B. Results Fascin-1 and EGFR protein positive rates in hormone receptor-positive breast cancer was 13.9% (41/294) and 30.6% (90/294), respectively. Fascin-1 positive rate was significantly higher in EGFR positive cases (30.0%, 27/90) than in EGFR negative cases (6.9%, 14/204) (χ2=27.857, P=0.000). In the ER positive and PR positive cases, Fascin-1 positive rates were both significantly higher in EGFR positive cases than in EGFR negative cases (χ2=29.23, P=0.000; χ2=27.596, P=0.000, respectively). In the Luminal A and Luminal B subtype, Fascin-1 positive rates were also both significantly higher in EGFR positive cases than in EGFR negative cases (χ2=23.247, P=0.000; χ2=5.325, P=0.021, respectively). Conclusions EGFR signal pathway may positive regulate Fascin-1 expression in hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. Key words: Receptors, estrogen/ME; Receptors, progesterone/ME; Breast neoplasms/ME/PA; Receptor, epidermal growth factor/ME; Immunohistochemistry