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Expression of interleukin 6 (IL-6) correlates with oestrogen receptor in human breast carcinoma
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  • Regular Article
  • Open access
  • Published: 09 April 1999

Expression of interleukin 6 (IL-6) correlates with oestrogen receptor in human breast carcinoma

  • G Fontanini1,
  • D Campani1,
  • M Roncella2,
  • D Cecchetti1,
  • S Calvo1,
  • A Toniolo3 &
  • …
  • F Basolo1 

British Journal of Cancer volume 80, pages 579–584 (1999)Cite this article

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Summary

Multifunctional cytokines play important and only partially defined roles in mammary tumour development and progression. Normal human mammary epithelial cells constitutively produce interleukin 6 (IL-6), IL-8 and a non-secreted form of tumour necrosis factor. Transformation of mammary epithelial cells by different oncogenes is frequently associated with alterations of cytokine/growth factor production and responsiveness. In the present study we analysed the expression of IL-6 in 149 cases of invasive breast carcinoma and the data have been correlated with clinico-pathological variables including tumour size, histological grade, nodal status, and oestrogen and progesterone receptors, Ki67 and p53, protein expression. Though the majority of breast carcinomas expressed at least low levels of immunoreactive IL-6, we found that expression of this cytokine was inversely associated with histological tumour grade (P = 0.0017), but not with tumour size and nodal status. Ki67 positivity was inversely correlated with IL-6 expression (P = 0.027). Among biological parameters analysed, a direct association was found between the percentage of IL-6-positive cells and that of oestrogen (P = 0.00005) and progesterone (P = 0.025) receptor-positive cells. No correlation was observed between IL-6 and p53 protein expression. These data indicate that down-regulation of IL-6 is associated with highly malignant mammary carcinomas. It will be of interest to evaluate whether alterations of cytokines that are constitutively produced by mammary cells are also associated with high-grade tumours.

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    This paper was modified 12 months after initial publication to switch to Creative Commons licence terms, as noted at publication

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oncology, Division of Pathology, University of Pisa, 57 Via Roma, Pisa, 56126, Italy

    G Fontanini, D Campani, D Cecchetti, S Calvo & F Basolo

  2. Department of Oncology, Division of Surgery, University of Pisa, 57 Via Roma, Pisa, 56126, Italy

    M Roncella

  3. Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences, University of Pavia, Varese, Italy

    A Toniolo

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  1. G Fontanini
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  2. D Campani
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  3. M Roncella
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Additional information

Supported by the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC, Milan)

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From twelve months after its original publication, this work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

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Fontanini, G., Campani, D., Roncella, M. et al. Expression of interleukin 6 (IL-6) correlates with oestrogen receptor in human breast carcinoma. Br J Cancer 80, 579–584 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6690394

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  • Received: 05 February 1998

  • Revised: 20 May 1998

  • Accepted: 27 May 1998

  • Published: 09 April 1999

  • Issue date: 01 May 1999

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6690394

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Keywords

  • cytokines
  • IL-6
  • breast cancer
  • ER
  • PgR
  • p53
  • Ki67

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