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Originally published as JCO Early Release 10.1200/JCO.2006.09.0118 on June 4 2007 © 2007 American Society of Clinical Oncology. Plasma Testosterone and Prognosis of Postmenopausal Breast Cancer Patients
From the Department of Preventive and Predictive Medicine; Scientific Directorate; and Chemoprevention Unit, Fondazione IRCCS "Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori"; and the European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy Address reprint requests to Andrea Micheli, PhD, Fondazione IRCCS "Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori," Via Venezian 1, 20133 Milan, Italy; e-mail: andrea.micheli{at}istitutotumori.mi.it Purpose: High endogenous testosterone is associated with increased breast cancer (BC) risk. We designed this study specifically to assess the long-term prognostic role of testosterone in a cohort of postmenopausal BC patients. Patients and Methods: We considered 194 postmenopausal women, operated on for early BC (T1-2N0M0), who never received chemotherapy or hormonal therapy, and who participated in a fenretinide BC prevention trial as untreated controls. Blood samples were collected 3 months (median) after surgery; plasma samples, stored at –80°C, were radioimmunoassayed for testosterone. Median follow-up was 14 years. The main end point was any cancer event. Event-free survival was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Hazard ratios (HRs) of events by testosterone level were estimated by the Cox model, adjusting for age, tumor size, and histology.
Results: Patients with high testosterone ( Conclusion: High plasma testosterone strongly predicts poorer prognosis in postmenopausal BC patients not administered adjuvant therapy. Testosterone levels should be determined as part of the prognostic work-up. published online ahead of print at www.jco.org on June 4, 2007. Supported by the Italian Association for Cancer Research (ref. 47/03) and the US National Cancer Institute, US Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, and the Italian National Research Council. Presented in part at the Reunião do Grupo para a Epidemiologia e o Registro do Cancro nos Países de Língua Latina, May 4-6, 2005, Lisbon, Portugal. Authors' disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and author contributions are found at the end of this article. This article has been cited by other articles:
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Copyright © 2007 by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Online ISSN: 1527-7755. Print ISSN: 0732-183X
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