摘要
乳癌是全世界婦女最常見的惡性腫瘤，其患病率正以一個令人驚訝的速度快速地增加，從以往的研究清楚地發現，肥胖與乳癌發生的風險和預後有關。脂肪細胞激素是一群由脂肪細胞所分泌的賀爾蒙且已被證實與許多的腫瘤發生有關。本實驗即在探討visfatin和resistin這兩種新發現的脂肪細胞激素在乳癌病患當中的表現情形並研究其與病人的臨床病理病徵之相關性。 從實驗結果發現，visfatin和resistin的表現主要是在乳癌組織中，與其相鄰的正常乳腺組織則無明顯地觀察到visfatin和resistin的表現。另外在乳癌患者其血清中之visfatin和resistin偵測值亦較正常女性血清內之visfatin和resistin偵測值有顯著增加。Visfatin在乳癌病患中與腫瘤大小、陰性雌激素受體和陰性助孕激素受體有著顯著相關性。Resistin在乳癌病患中則與腫瘤分期、腫瘤大小、淋巴結轉移及陽性雌激素受體有著顯著相關性。在乳癌病患表現高visfatin和resistin的群體中，假如其有接受賀爾蒙的治療則會減少其復發的機會，但在乳癌病患接受放射治療或化學藥物治療者則無此情況發生。另外乳癌病患表現較高之visfatin和resistin則會造成病人較差的存活率，Cox回歸分析還顯示，visfatin和resistin的表現可當作一個預測乳癌發生風險的獨立因子。當MCF-7細胞給予visfatin和resistin時，其會增加MCF-7細胞的增殖速率和刺激細胞進入G1-S細胞週期的進程。 高表現之visfatin和resistin在乳癌病患中與惡性的臨床病理病徵以及較差的病人存活率相關。因此visfatin和resistin可能作為乳癌病患於診斷上一個獨立的預後預測因子，及在配合賀爾蒙治療上作為一個有潛力的標靶治療目標。
並列摘要
Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women worldwide, and its prevalence is increasing at a surprisingly rapid rate and previous studies clearly showed that obesity is correlated with the risk and prognosis of breast cancer. Adipocytokines are adipocyte-derived hormones and well documented to be involved in carcinogenesis. The expression of visfatin and resistin, the newly discovered adipocytokines, in breast cancer patients was determined and correlated with patient clinicopathological variables in this study. High visfatin and resistin expression was predominantly observed in breast cancer tissues but not the adjacent normal breast tissues. Serum levels were increased significantly for visfatin and resistin in the breast cancer patients, in comparison to controls. High visfatin expression in breast cancer patients was significantly correlated with tumor size, estrogen receptor negativity, and progesterone receptor status negativity. High resistin expression in breast cancer patients was correlated significantly with tumor stage, tumor size, lymph node metastasis and estrogen receptor status. Hormone therapy, but not radiotherapy or chemotherapy, decreased the recurrence rate in patients with high visfatin and resistin expression. While high visfatin and resistin expression was associated with poor patient survival, Cox regression analysis also revealed that visfatin and resistin was an independent predictor of patient survival. Administration of visfatin and resistin increased cell proliferation and activated G1-S phase cell cycle progression in MCF-7 cells. High visfatin and resistin expression in breast cancer patient is associated with a more malignant clinicopathological status as well as poor patient survival. Visfatin and resistin may therefore hold promise as an independent prognosis predictor for breast cancer, as a marker for hormone therapy stratification and as a potential therapeutic target.