EXPRESSION OF SEX-HORMONE RECEPTORS AND CLINICOPATHOLOGICAL FINDINGS IN HEPATOCELLULAR-CARCINOMA

We studied the expresssion of estrogen (ER), progesterone (PgR), and a ndrogen receptors (AR) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and found exp ression in (7/36), 3.2% (1/31), 16.7% (4/24) of cases, respectively. T he expression of ER did not correlate with histological grade, tumor s ize, or stage of disease. On the other hand, all the patients with AR- positive tumors had stage IV disease, and only 25% of the patients wit h AR-negative tumors had stage IV disease. The survival was not influe nced by the expression pattern of ER, however, the survival of the pat ients with AR-positive tumors tended to be worse than that of patients with AR-negative tumors. We suggest that the AR expression correlates better with poor outcome in HCC than the ER expression.