Prognostic relevance of urokinase plasminogen activator and its inhibitors in patients with breast cancerBorštnar, Simona (Avtor) Čufer, Tanja (Avtor) Vrhovec, Ivan (Avtor) Rudolf, Zvonimir (Avtor) Urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) and its inhibitors, PAI-1 and PAI-2, play an important role in iritercellular tissue degradation, thus promoting tumor cell invasion into the adjoining structures and metastasizing. Our studywas aimed to assess a possible prognostic value of uPA, PAI-1 and PAI-2 in a retrospective series of 87 patients with breast cancer stage I-III, whosecytosols were stored in the archives of the, Institute of Oncology in Ljubljana. The median follow-up was 35 months. The prognostic value of the established prognostic factors and uPA, PAI-1 and PAI-2 were evaluated by means of univariate statistical analysis and partial multivariate models. The obtained uPA values were very low and did not correlate with the disease free survival, whereas PAI-1 and PAI-2 significantly influenced the time to the first recurrence. Patients with PAI-1 values above 5 ng/mg proteins had statistically significantly worse disease free survival than the patients withlower PAI-1 values (58% vs. 85%). In the case of PAI-2, the situation wasjust the opposite: the patients with PAI-2 values exceeding 6.4 ng/mg proteins had statistically significantly better 3-year disease free survival than the patients with lower values (90% vs. 60%). Both, PAI-1 and PAl-2 retained their independent prognostic value, irrespective of the addition of the established prognostic factors to partial multivariate models, and only with locally advanced disease the prognostic value of PAI-1 was greater than that of PAI-2.Slovenian Medical Association - Slovenian Association of Radiology, Nuclear Medicine Society, Slovenian Society far Radiotherapy and Oncology, and Slovenian Cancer Society 19992024-01-22 10:45:47Neznano17910UDK: 616-006ISSN pri članku: 1318-2099COBISS_ID: 9752281Ljubljanaslby Authors