Ricerc@Sapienza

Introduction: Our objectives is to show that the expression of uPA leukocyte could be considered, in the future, as a marker of
the expression of uPA in the malignant tissue and therefore a potential indicator of prognosis.
Methods: We examined the expression of uPa in leukocytes and tissues of three groups of women: with breast cancer; with
benign breast lesion and healthy women (control group). We used RT Real Time PCR assay. The expression of urokinase is
significantly higher in malignant breast lumps compared to benign lesions. However, in women with carcinoma of the breast,
malignant tissue expresses higher amounts of uPA than the healthy counterpart. There are no statistically significant differences in
the expression of uPA, between tissues taken from women with benign lesions. The lymphocytes taken from healthy volunteers
show a level of expression of uPA significantly lower than the other tested samples Lymphocytes extracted from cancer patients
express higher amounts of uPA compared to lymphocytes belonging to women with benign breast lesions. The expression of uPA
was compared with the clinical and biological parameters commonly used in clinical practice for the definition of the prognosis.
The only exception found, concerns those tumors characterized by the simultaneous negativity for estrogen receptors,
progesterone and HER2 (state of triple negative), in which the expression of uPA is very high.
Results and conclusions: Our data show that uPA expressed by leukocytes of each individual patient is the mirror image of the
one expressed by malignant nodular uPA.