ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study the expression of thymidine phosphorylase (TP), thymidylate synthase (TS) and dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) mRNA in breast cancer and its correlation with prognosis.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Expression levels of TP, TS and DPD mRNA in 86 micro-selected breast cancer tissues and 9 normal breast tissues were detected by real-time quantitative PCR.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The median expression levels of TP, TS and DPD mRNA in tumor tissue and in normal tissues were 16.54, 0.38, 2.47 and 11.75, 0.25, 8.33, respectively, there were no significant differences (P >0.05). The expression levels of TP, TS and DPD mRNA showed no association with tumor size, lymph node metastasis, pathological grade and clinical stage, except that of DPD showed a negative association with patients' ages. There was no significant difference in disease-free survival or overall survival between the patients with high and low TP or DPD mRNA levels. Disease-free survival tends to be better in the patients with low TS mRNA level than those with high TS mRNA, but the difference was not significant (P=0.069), while the overall survival showed a statistically difference (59.00 month and 70.30 month) (P=0.0496).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The expression level of TS mRNA may serve as a prognostic marker for breast cancer patients.</p>