Expression of ornithine decarboxylase mRNA and c-myc mRNA in breast tumours.

We examined the expression of ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) mRNA in 53 female cases of breast cancer by a reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay to determine the clinicopathologic significance of its expression. A significantly higher expression of ODC mRNA was, observed in younger patients than in older patients. The patients with a larger sized tumour possessed a significantly higher expression of ODC mRNA. In addition, the cases with a poor prognosis showed significantly higher expression of ODC. Previous studies have reported in vivo and in vitro correlation between the expression of ODC and c-myc genes in human carcinomas. We disclosed a significant correlation between these genes in primary breast carcinomas. We conclude that the expression of ODC may potentially be a new biological marker for breast carcinoma.