An evaluation of prognostic value of death-associated protein kinase 1 in breast cancer

Background: The benefit of tissue microarray (TMA) is its capability to analyse large numbers of tissue samples in a uniform fashion. This study was designed to evaluate the capability of TMA for analyzing the status of death-associated protein kinase 1 (DAPK1) in breast cancer patient and to explore its potential in the management of breast cancer. Patients and Methods: Over a 60-month period, tissue specimens of 99 patients with primary invasive breast cancer were selected. Tissue microarray (TMA) was applied to detect the DAPK1 expression. The data for the other clinicopathologic variables, including age, histological grading, estrogen receptor status and TNM staging were also recorded. Results: Tumor in 11 patients (11.1%) scored 1 for DAPK1 expression, 55 patients (55.6%) scored 2 and 33 (33.3%) scored 3. We found no obvious link between DAPK1 expression and age, histologic grading, primary tumor staging, lymph node status, estrogen receptor and TNM stage. TNM staging was found to be significantly linked to the overall five-year survival rate through multivariate analysis. Conclusion: DAPK1 expression did not show any meaningful value in predicting outcome for patients with breast cancer.