Urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) is a serine protease that is causally involved in cancer progression, especially invasion and metastasis. Multiple studies have shown that breast cancer patients whose primary cancer contains high levels of uPA have a significantly worse outcome than patients with low levels. As a prognostic marker for breast cancer the information supplied by uPA is both independent of traditionally used factors and significant in the important subgroup of axillary-node patients. Paradoxically, high levels of plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), an endogenous inhibitor of uPA, also predict for aggressive disease. Recently, the prognostic impact of both uPA and PAI-1 in axillary node-negative breast cancer was confirmed using two different Level 1 Evidence studies, i.e. in both a randomized prospective trial and a pooled analysis. Therefore, uPA and PAI-1 appear to have fulfilled all the criteria for the routine assessment of prognosis in newly diagnosed breast cancer patients
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Conference Article|
April 01 2002
Urokinase-type plasminogen activator: a potent marker of metastatic potential in human cancers
M. J. Duffy
M. J. Duffy
1
1Department of Nuclear Medicine, St Vincent's University Hospital, Dublin 4, Ireland, Department of Surgery, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland, and Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland
1To whom correspondence should be addressed (e-mail michael.j.duffy@ucd.ie).
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Publisher: Portland Press Ltd
Received:
November 12 2001
Online ISSN: 1470-8752
Print ISSN: 0300-5127
© 2002 Biochemical Society
2002
Biochem Soc Trans (2002) 30 (2): 207–210.
Article history
Received:
November 12 2001
Citation
M. J. Duffy; Urokinase-type plasminogen activator: a potent marker of metastatic potential in human cancers. Biochem Soc Trans 1 April 2002; 30 (2): 207–210. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/bst0300207
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