Figure 1.
Examples of staining intensities for pAkt-IR ranging from 1, 2, 3 and an area (indicated) with staining 4.
These photographs (20×) were used as standards by both evaluators throughout the scoring phase of the project. The top two cores are from tumours, whilst the bottom two cores are from non-malignant tissue.
Table 1.
Correlation coefficients for pAkt-IR scores with clinical parameters and with the proliferation marker Ki-67.
Table 2.
Correlation coefficients for pAkt-IR scores with pEGFR-IR, total EGFR-IR and PDFRß-IR scores in the tumour and non-malignant tissue samples.
Table 3.
Age, Gleason scores, incidence of metastases at diagnosis and tumour Ki67-IR at diagnosis for the cases divided on the basis of tumour pAkt-IR and pEGFR-IR scores.
Figure 2.
Prognostic significance of tumour and non-malignant pAkt-IR for cases who were followed by expectancy.
Panels A and B are for tumour pAkt-IR (n = 204), C and D for non-malignant pAkt-IR (n = 194). In Panels A and C, Exp(B) (±95% confidence intervals), obtained from Cox proportional-hazards regression analyses are shown for different cut-offs. Exp(B) is defined as the increase in risk for death due to prostate cancer for a score above the cut-off value relative to a score below the cut-off value. When both confidence limits are above unity (filled symbols in the figure), the cut-off value provides significant prognostic information. Values with a significance level 0.05<P<0.1 are shown as open triangles. The cut-off value with the highest significance is shown as a red filled symbol. The blue dotted line indicates the % of cases above the cut-off value. Thus, for example, for the symbol in Panel A at pAkt-IR cut-off value 2.5 (i.e sample divided as ≤2.5 and >2.5), 82 cases (40%) were ≤ the cut-off value and 122 cases (60%) above the cut-off value. In Panels B and D, Kaplan-Meier plots are shown for the cut-offs showing the highest significances. †Pca refers to the number of patients who died as a result of their prostate cancer during the follow-up period. The ķ2 values are for the log-rank (Mantel-Cox) tests, with the P values shown: ***P<0.001, *P<0.05.
Table 4.
COX proportional-hazards regression analyses for tumour and non-malignant pAkt-IR, tumour pEGFR-IR and Ki-67-IR for patients followed by expectancy.
Figure 3.
Prognostic significance of tumour pEGFR-IR and Ki67-IR for cases who were followed by expectancy: relationship with tumour pAkt-IR.
Panel A shows Exp(B) obtained from Cox proportional-hazards regression analyses are shown for different cut-offs of pEGFR-IR (n = 253). The cut-off value with the highest significance is shown as a red filled symbol. Values with a significance level 0.05<P<0.1 are shown as open triangles. Panel B shows a Kaplan-Meier plot for the 185 cases scored for both tumour pAkt-IR and pEGFR-IR, divided up on the basis of their optimal cut-offs. In Panel C, Exp(B) values are shown for different cut-offs of Ki67-IR (n = 286). The red and blue symbols indicate the highest significance levels for the lower range and for the higher range, respectively. Panel D shows a Kaplan-Meier plot for the 202 cases scored for both tumour pAkt-IR and Ki67-IR, divided up on the basis of their optimal cut-offs. †Pca refers to the number of patients who died as a result of their prostate cancer during the follow-up period. The ķ2 values are for the log-rank (Mantel-Cox) tests, with the P values shown: ***P<0.001.
Table 5.
Pairwise comparisons of significance levels and 15 year rates of disease specific survival for the combinations of pEGFR-IR and pAkt-IR shown in Fig. 3B.
Figure 4.
Prognostic significance of tumour and non-malignant pAkt-IR for cases who were followed by expectancy.
Panel A and B are for cases with Gleason scores 6–7 (n = 102); Panels C and D are for cases with Gleason scores 8–10 (n = 51). The Exp(B) values obtained from Cox proportional-hazards regression analyses (Panels A and C) and the Kaplan-Meier plots (Panels B and D) were determined as described in the legend to Fig. 2. The ķ2 values are for the log-rank (Mantel-Cox) tests, with the P values shown: *P<0.05, NSP>0.8.