CYP19A1 gene expression in the peripheral blood of Brazilian women with breast cancer relapse.

Background: The CYP19A1 gene, which encodes the enzyme responsible for androgen aromatization into estrogens, may play an important role in breast cancer aggressiveness. However, no study has evaluated CYP19A1 gene expression in the peripheral blood of women with relapsed breast cancer.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, CYP19A1 gene expression was quantified by RT-PCR in the peripheral blood of 146 women with breast cancer who were first divided into two groups according to the expression of CYP19A1 (low and high); each group had 73 patients. Subsequently, women were divided into two groups: those without recurrence (control, n = 85) and those with recurrence (study, n = 61). Statistical analysis of the data was performed using ANOVA, the Mann-Whitney, Chi-square or Fisher's exact test (p <  0.05).

Results: There were no significant differences between the relative expression of CYP19A1 mRNA in the low expression group and the high expression group according to the variables studied. There were no significant differences in CYP19A1 gene expression in the study and control groups (p = 0.8461). In the relapse group, CYP19A1 gene expression was significantly higher in the hybrid luminal subtype than in the triple-negative subtype (p = 0.0321), whereas it was significantly lower in HER2-negative cases than in HER2-positive cases (p <  0.0376). Women with locoregional recurrence showed higher expression than women with distant recurrence (p <  0.0001).

Conclusions: The present study found no significant differences between women with high and low expression of the CYP19A1 gene mRNA or between those in the study group and the control group. However, in women with recurrence, there was increased expression of CYP19A1 mRNA in those who had the luminal hybrid subtype and locoregional relapse and decreased expression in those negative for HER2.