Estrogen receptor negative and progesterone receptor positive primary breast cancer: Pathological characteristics and clinical outcome

Abstract

The expression of estrogen (ER) and progesterone (PgR) receptors was analyzed in a retrospective series of 3000 patients who had operable primary breast cancer. Patients were stratified according to ER and PgR status and the study was focused on the two groups (ER-PgR+ and ER-PgR-) of patients whose tumors contained low levels of ER (< 15 fmol/mg protein), regarding potential response to endocrine therapy. The comparison of clinical or histological characteristics between ER-PgR+ and ER-PgR- patients was analyzed as well as the disease-related death and survival. The mean follow-up was 86.3 months. Among the 529 ER-patients, 62 were PgR+ (12%), whereas 467 were PgR- (88%). The ER-PgR+ and ER-PgR- populations represented 2% and 15.6% of the overall population, respectively. In ER- tumors, the PgR status was significantly related to: age, menopausal status, tumor size, SBR grade, and histological type, but not to the type of surgical treatment or to lymph node involvement. ER-PgR+ tumors had smaller size (64% T1 vs 43%) (p=0.004) and were more frequently grade I (28% vs 12%) than ER-PgR- tumors (p < 0.001). In addition, the patients with ER-PgR+ tumors were significantly younger (49.4 years vs 58.4 years; p < 0.0001), and were more frequently premenopausal (76% vs 36%, p < 0.001). The disease-free interval and the metastasis-free survival tended to be worse for ER-PgR- than for ER-PgR+ patients, but the difference was not statistically significant at 10 years. However, a small but significant difference in overall survival, in favor of the PgR+ group, was observed between the two groups during the first 5 years (p=0.03). We conclude that in combination with ER, PgR status defines a group of patients with clinical and biological specificity, which could be considered for specific endocrine therapy.

Estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor are prognostic factors in soft tissue sarcomas

“…In our study, the ER -/PgR + profile was a significantly unfavourable factor for the whole patient cohort both in univariate and in multivariate analysis. Interestingly, such a profile occurred in only 2% of patients in one large-scale study, based on 3000 breast cancer cases (29), while in our STS study this profile was seen in 14% of the tumors.…”

“…Shortly, any hormone receptor positivity gives better prognosis for success of antihormonal therapy (29,30). We were not able to find any available published investigation of the prognostic impact of ER/PgR coexpression profiles on DSS and overall survival without relation to endocrine therapy.…”

Association of theProgesterone ReceptorGene with Breast Cancer Risk: A Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism Tagging Approach

“…Similar correlations have been seen between tumor invasiveness and low levels of hormone (10,11) or higher levels of receptor (12)(13)(14). The majority of breast cancers stain positively for both PGR and estrogen receptor; receptor positivity is predictive of response to tamoxifen and overall survival.…”

Breast cancer patients with estrogen receptor-negative/progesterone receptor-positive tumors: being younger and getting less benefit from adjuvant tamoxifen treatment

“…The frequency of ER¡/PgR+ tumors is about 2-7% in western breast cancer patients (Bernoux et al 1998;Grann et al 2005), 8% in Middle-East counterparts as reported (Kiani et al 2006). In present study of China, the proportion was up to 11%.…”