Breast cancer: steroid receptors and other prognostic indicators

To correlate hormone receptor status in breast cancer with patient's age, tumor size, type, grade and lymph node metastasis.

A descriptive study.

Department of Histopathology, Liaquat National Postgraduate Medical Center, Karachi, from January 2002 to March 2003.

One hundred and fifty patients of breast cancer were studied. Estrogen and progesterone receptor status was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. This was correlated with patients' age, tumor size, type, grade and lymph node status.

Out of 150 cases, 55% of cases were estrogen receptor (ER) negative progesterone receptor ( PR) negative. Older women tended to have more steroid receptor reactivity as compared with younger ones. ER positivity decreased with increasing tumor size and grade, however, no significant correlation was seen with lymph node metastasis. Majority of the tumors showing ERPR positivity were infiltrating ductal carcinoma-not otherwise specified type.

This study reports a significantly higher incidence of ER negative PR negative phenotype in breast cancer patients. This observation is different as compared with that in western literature where ER positive PR positive phenotype is greater than the negative phenotype suggesting that breast cancer in our patients may have different disease pattern and biology.