Evaluation of androgen receptor status in urothelial carcinoma of the urinary bladder in Egyptian patients: an immunohistochemical study

Background The roles of androgen and androgen receptor (AR) signaling in the oncogenesis of prostate cancer are very well established. What is more poorly understood is the role of AR in other human malignancies including bladder cancer. The incidence of bladder cancer is much higher in males than females, but the exact etiology has not been fully elucidated. This gender disparity has raised the possibility of the AR pathway being involved in the genesis of this disease. Thereby, the aim of this work was to evaluate the expression of AR in a group of Egyptian patients with urothelial bladder carcinoma and to assess whether its expression was correlated with other pathological tumor features. Urothelial bladder carcinoma tissue samples from 50 patients were studied by immunostaining for AR expression in tumor cells. Results AR was positively expressed in 29 (58%) patients, while negative expression was observed in 21 (42%) patients. No statistically significant difference in AR expression with respect to tumor grade ( P = 0.07) and pT stage ( P = 0.09) was observed. Conclusions The results obtained in this study indicates a clinical value of the AR expression in Egyptian patients with urothelial bladder carcinoma, providing the basis for further studies to evaluate its role and the possibility of new target-based therapies for urothelial bladder carcinoma.