Breast cancers with extremely high oestrogen receptor protein status

Seventeen cases of primary and one case of metastatic breast cancer which expressed greater than 900 fmol oestrogen receptor sites per mg soluble protein were examined. All these patients were post-menopausal at the time of their presentation. These were a heterogeneous group of well-differentiated cellular breast carcinomas, comprising cases of invasive duct carcinoma with extensive tubular differentiation or with focal argyrophilia, tubulolobular carcinoma, lobular carcinoma of mixed type containing abundant intracytoplasmic lumina, papillary carcinoma and type B colloid carcinoma. There was very little tumour necrosis. Nodal metastasis, tumour size and host inflammatory response did not appear to show any relationship with oestrogen receptor status. The patients, apart from two who died from other causes, remain alive (Fisher's exact test, P less than 0.01). In contrast, 17 randomly selected cases of oestrogen receptor negative breast cancer in the same study period were focally necrotic, poorly-differentiated invasive duct carcinomas. Six patients died from metastatic disease, seven were alive and well, one was alive with metastatic disease, one was lost to follow-up and two died from diseases unrelated to breast cancer.