RESEARCH ARTICLE Clinical importance of phosphatase of regenerating liver-3 expression in breast cancer Bala Basak Oven Ustaalioglu • Ahmet Bilici • Nagehan Ozdemir Barisik • Mehmet Aliustaoglu • Fugen Aker Vardar • Burcak Erkol Yilmaz • Mesut Seker • Mahmut Gumus Received: 2 December 2011 / Accepted: 6 February 2012 / Published online: 19 July 2012 Ó Federacio ´n de Sociedades Espan ˜olas de Oncologı ´a (FESEO) 2012 Abstract Background Several biomarkers have been previously studied for breast cancer to define risk of recurrence and metastasis. Phosphatase of regenerating liver-3 (PRL-3) is one of them. High PRL-3 expression has been found to be correlated with axillary lymph node metastasis and survival in breast cancer. Herein, we evaluated the prognostic sig- nificance of PRL-3 expression and the relationship between PRL-3 and other clinicopathological factors. Methods PRL-3 expression was analyzed immunohisto- chemically in 122 invasive breast cancer tissues. We evaluated the correlation between PRL-3 and other clini- copathological factors by v 2 test. Kaplan–Meier test and log rank method were used to define prognostic importance of PRL-3 expression. Results Of 122 breast cancer tumor samples, 46 (37.7 %) were negative while 76 (62.3 %) were positive in respect to PRL-3 expression. There was significant correlation between PRL-3 expression and other clinicopathological factors, such as histology, lymphovascular invasion (LVI), necrosis, progesterone receptor (PR) status, and the pres- ence of triple negative disease. Tumors with LVI and necrosis had more positive PRL-3 expression compared to tumors without LVI or necrosis (P = 0.05 and 0.03, respectively). Triple negative and cerb-B overexpressed breast cancers were found to be more positive PRL-3 expression than hormone receptor positive with cerb-B negative groups (luminal A) (P = 0.02).We could not find any relationship between PRL-3 expression and overall survival (OS) or disease-free survival (DFS) (P [ 0.05). Conclusion Although PRL-3 expression was related to LVI or necrosis which is important for tumor invasiveness, we could not find that PRL-3 as an important prognostic factor in breast cancer patients. In addition, triple negative and cerb-B overexpressed tumors, which had worse prog- nosis compared to hormone receptor positive without cerb- B expressed group, associated with also PRL-3 positivity more than PRL-3 negative group. Keywords Breast cancer Á PRL-3 Á Prognosis Á Molecular classification Introduction Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for women [1]. Management of the breast cancer and selection of the treatment modalities are depended on several prog- nostic and predictive markers. The best-known prognostic factors are axillary lymph node metastasis (ALN), tumor size, and histological grade [2]. Many molecular markers involved in metastatic process have been identified but it is needed to develop new therapeutic target for invasion and metastatic process of breast cancer. B. B. O. Ustaalioglu Á A. Bilici Á M. Aliustaoglu Á B. E. Yilmaz Á M. Seker Á M. Gumus Department of Medical Oncology, Dr. Lutfi Kirdar Kartal Education and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey B. B. O. Ustaalioglu (&) Selimiye Mah. Sair Nesimi Sok, No: 15/2, Daire:4, Uskudar, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: basakoven@yahoo.com N. O. Barisik Department of Pathology, Dr. Lutfi Kirdar Kartal Education and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey F. A. Vardar Department of Pathology, Haydarpasa Numune Education and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey 123 Clin Transl Oncol (2012) 14:911–922 DOI 10.1007/s12094-012-0880-5