Haptoglobin-Related Protein (Hpr) Epitopes in Breast Cancer as a Predictor of Recurrence of the Disease

Abstract
The early discrimination of clinically aggressive breast cancer from indolent disease would be clinically useful. Some human breast cancers express haptoglobin-related protein (Hpr), the HPR gene product, or a substance that shares epitopes with it. We retrospectively examined the association between the expression of Hpr and the recurrence of cancer in 70 patients with early breast cancer (Stage I or II) treated by mastectomy from 1977 through 1985, using immunohistochemical analysis of routinely processed paraffin-embedded tissue and evaluating it without knowledge of the patients' status.