PROSTATE-SPECIFIC ANTIGEN (PSA) IN BREAST AND OVARIAN-CANCER

Prostatic specific antigen (PSA) is commonly used for the diagnosis an d monitoring of prostatic adenocarcinoma, and has recently been detect ed in breast cancel and it is also thought to be produced by ovarian c ancer. To examine the prognostic value of PSA tumor expression, we inv estigated the tumor cytosols of 26 patients with breast cancer and of 16 women with ovarian cancer. We used a chemiluminescence immunoassay for the quantitative determination of PSA (detection limit 0.003ng/ml) . The median PSA level in breast cancer patients was 0.31 ng/mg (minim um 0.003, maximum 4.4). PSA expression was significantly lower in poor ly differentiated breast cancers compared to moderately and highly dif ferentiated tumors. Advanced lymph node metastases were also correlate d with lower PSA expression. We found no correlation with relapse free or overall survival. Median PSA level in our ovarian cancer patient c ollective was 0.014 ng/mg (minimum 0.003, maximum 0.046). We found a s ignificant correlation between PSA expression and the estrogen recepto r content of the tumor. PSA expression showed no correlation with hist ological grading, tumor sire or other tumor characteristics in ovarian cancer. There was no correlation with relapse free or overall surviva l in ovarian cancer patients. Our study demonstrates that PSA is expre ssed in ovarian malignancies but at a lower level compared to breast c ancer tissue. PSA was not able to identify a subset of patients with g ood prognosis in breast and in ovarian cancer patients.