Expression of WT1 (Wilms’ Tumor 1) Marker in Breast Cancer and Its Relationship with Histological Grading

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women all over the world. Recently many scientists have been trying to evaluate the usefulness of the Wilms’ tumor protein (WT1) as a promising therapeutic target in breast cancer. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Pathology, Rajshahi Medical College, Rajshahi over a period of 12 months from March 2022 to February 2023. A total of 65 biopsy samples from the patients with a histopathological diagnosis of breast carcinoma were included in the study. Expression of WT1 was evaluated in formalin fixed and paraffin embedded specimens by immunohistochemistry. WT1 expression was categorized as negative, mild, moderate and strong. Results: The mean (±SD) age of the patients was 48.4 (±6.6) years and range 36-65 years. WT1 expression was present in 28/65 (43.1%) patients and WT1 staining expression was found to be mild, moderate and strong in 16.9%, 13.9% and 12.3% of the samples, respectively. Positive WT1 expression was significantly higher in grade I tumor than in the grade II and III tumor (78.6% versus 33.3%, p=0.01). Conclusions: WT1 expression in breast carcinoma is found to be a common occurrence and its expression has been negatively related with tumor grade.