Expression of estrogen and androgen receptors on aneurysm walls and their effects in patients with intracranial aneurysm / 中国脑血管病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the significance of androgen and estrogen receptor expression levels on aneurysm walls.Methods From November 2007 to June 2016,32 patients received craniotomy for clipping intracranial aneurysms in the West China Hospital,Sichuan University were enrolled prospectively.Nineteen intracranial aneurysm walls and 26 superficial temporal artery branches were obtained (a total of 45 qualified specimens).Immunohistochemical method was used to detect the superficial temporal artery branches and smooth muscle layer of intracranial aneurysm wall and the expression levels of estrogen receptor-α,β and androgen receptors.Image Pro Plus 6.0 software was used to analyze and detect the integral optical density values of the positive cell expression levels.The χ2 test and rank-sum test were used for statistical analysis.Results The median (M) and interquartile range (P25,P75) of the expression levels of estrogen receptor-α,β of the intracranial aneurysm walls were 3 049 (2 112,5 554) and 4 364 (2 314,5 667) respectively.They were lower than 6 544 (3 507,10 103) and 6 972 (5 694,10 024) of the superficial temporal artery branches.The expression level of androgen receptor of aneurysm wall was 3 299 (1 375,4 895),it was higher than 1 130 (794,1 922) of the superficial temporal artery branches.There was significant difference between the two groups (all P<0.05).Conclusion The decreased expression levels of estrogen receptor-α,β and the increased expression level of androgen receptor in the cerebrovascular walls may promote the progress of intracranial aneurysms,however,the specific mechanism needs further study.