Androgen receptor modulation in benign human prostatic tissue and prostatic adenocarcinoma during neoadjuvant endocrine combination therapy

✍ Scribed by van der Kwast, T. H.; Têtu, B.; Fradet, Y.; Dupont, A.; Gomez, J.; Cusan, L.; Diamond, P.; Labrie, F.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 516 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0270-4137
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0045(199604)28:4<227::aid-pros3>3.0.co;2-a

✦ Synopsis

Modulation of androgen receptor (AR) expression during neoadjuvant endocrine therapy in human prostates of patients with localized prostate cancer was investigated by immunohistochemistry. In 8 of 15 untreated prostatectomy specimens, the majority of prostatic glandular cells displayed nuclear immunostaining for AR, whereas only 1 of 26 pretreated cases displayed a similar glandular AR expression. Expression of AR in the prostatic stromal compartment of nontreated cases proved to be quite heterogeneous, since 4 of the 15 (27%) examined specimens did not show stromal AR expression. After preoperative neoadjuvant therapy, this value was 68%, although this difference did not reach statistical significance. Prostatectomy specimens of the treated patients contained carcinomas with a higher Gleason score than those of untreated patients. AR expression in carcinomas of treated patients was diminished (P = 0.05), which may be attributed to their relatively lower differentiation grade. The data strongly suggest that neoadjuvant hormone therapy reduces AR expression by nonneoplastic prostatic glandular cells and carcinoma cells by a selective, but incomplete, elimination of AR-positive cells.