Tumour prothymosin alpha content, a potential prognostic marker for primary breast cancer

In a previous report we suggested that the estimation of prothymosin alpha (PTA) levels in primary breast tumours might be used to identify breast can cer patients at high risk for distant metastasis (Dominguez F et al (1993) fur J Cancer 29A: 893-897). Here the role of tumour PTA levels as predictor was investigated with respect to both disease-free survival (DFS) and surv ival. Tumours were obtained from a series of 210 consecutive female patient s with ductal carcinoma who underwent surgery at the Hospital Xeral de Gali cia (Santiago de Compostela, Spain). Characteristics including PTA tumour l evels, number of positive axillary nodes, patient's age at surgery and tumo ur histological grade were significantly associated with DFS and survival, as determined by univariate analysis. Patients with tumours with tow or mod erate PTA revels demonstrated a statistically decreased rate of tumour recu rrence and a statistically significant increased overall survival in compar ison with those whose tumours had high PTA levels. Patient's relative risk of dying was 2.1 times greater for tumours with high PTA levels than for th ose tumours with low or moderate PTA levels. In conclusion, these data supp ort the hypothesis that tumour high PTA levels is associated with a worse o utcome. (C) 2000 Cancer Research Campaign.