International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences | November 2018 | Vol 6 | Issue 11 Page 3472 International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences Ali SN et al. Int J Res Med Sci. 2018 Nov;6(11):3472-3477 www.msjonline.org pISSN 2320-6071 | eISSN 2320-6012 Original Research Article Expression of anaplastic lymphokinase and HER2/neu immunostaining in patients with breast carcinoma Syed Naqeeb Ali, Aneela Qureshi, Amin Fahim*, Muhammad Yousif Khoso INTRODUCTION Breast carcinoma is second most common cause of women mortality. Almost 1.5 million newly diagnosed breast cancer females are reported around the globe every year. 1 A data base for the Indian and Pakistani female immigrants to United States for epidemiological incidences have reported younger less than 40 years females with increased risk of breast cancer. In a study conducted in Karachi revealed that about 33% of the total cancers in the females are breast cancer. 2 The age-related incidence rate of breast cancer in Pakistani females is found to be around 50.1/100,000 population on yearly basis. The changes in reproductive and menstrual characteristics can influence the age-related breast cancer incidence as is found very high about 90 per 100,000 women in Western Europe where as comparatively very low 19.3 per 100,000 in Eastern African women. 3 The most important risk factors of breast cancer are hormonal factors, lack of breast feeding, menarche at younger age, nulliparity, parity at older age have been Department of Pathology, Al-Tibri Medical College Karachi, Pakistan Received: 17 August 2018 Accepted: 26 September 2018 *Correspondence: Dr. Amin Fahim, E-mail: draminfahim@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT Background: The diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer is done with various immunomarkers including estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2/neu), and Ki-67. The diagnostic utility of Anaplastic Lymphokinase (ALK) and HER2/neu should be explored for better management of breast carcinoma patients. So, the present study was designed to determine the expression of immunostaining with ALK and HER2/neu in patients with breast cancer and to compare the association of ALK expression and HER2/neu with clinicopathological parameters. Methods: This is a cross sectional multicenter study carried out from October 2016 to March 2017. A total of 140 subjects having breast carcinoma by using non-probability purposive sampling technique were selected. After taking informed consent, tissue samples were taken from received specimen of mastectomy for hematoxylin and eosin stain. The immunohistochemistry for ALK and HER2/neu were assessed on the paraffin blocks of the tumor. Results: Out of total 140 cases invasive ductal carcinoma (89%), invasive lobular carcinoma (8%), invasive medullary carcinoma (2.1%) and papillary carcinoma (0.7%) were seen. ALK expression was positive in 81 patients (58%) while HER2/neu expression was positive in 53 cases (38%). Significant association was observed between ALK expression with histological grade, lymph node involvement, skin involvement and necrosis. There was also a significant association was seen between HER2/neu expression with lymph node metastasis and necrosis. Conclusions: Present study shows higher expression of ALK when compared to HER2/neu expression in breast cancer patients. Keywords: Anaplastic lymphokinase, Breast cancer, Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20184401