Hormone receptors expression in ovarian cancer taking into account menopausal status: a retrospective study in Chinese population

Abstract

Ovarian cancer is a major gynaecological cancer with different subtypes and studies have suggested that estrogen receptor (ER) or progesterone receptor (PR) positivity are associated with better clinical outcomes. Furthermore, the clinical outcomes of ovarian cancer are better in Asian compared to Caucasian. To date, studies investigating the ER or PR positivity in all subtypes of ovarian cancer, including borderline epithelial, are limited. In this retrospective study we investigated ER and PR positivity in Chinese women with malignant epithelial ovarian cancer (n=577), sex cord-stromal tumor (n=26) and borderline epithelial ovarian cancer (n=98) taking into account menopausal status. The positivity of ER (>85%) or PR (>58%) was higher in serous and endometrioid carcinoma of malignant epithelial ovarian cancer than that in mucinous and clear-cell carcinoma (<19% of ER or 24% of PR). The majority of serous carcinomas of borderline epithelial ovarian cancerwere ER or PR positive, but in contrast less than 33% of mucinous carcinomas of borderline epithelial ovarian cancerswere ERor PR positive.Furthermore, there was no association between the ER or PR positivity and menopausal status in both malignant and borderline epithelial ovarian cancer. We also found that the age at diagnosis with ovarian cancer was younger in Chinese women. Our data suggest that ER or PR positivity in Chinese women with ovarian cancer is similar to that of other ethnicities reported in literature, suggesting that the better clinical outcomes seen in Asian may be associated with other factors such as age at diagnosis of ovarian cancer.

Therapeutic options for mucinous ovarian carcinoma

“…It has been suggested that these histotypes may respond to hormonal therapy [38][39][40]. The percentage of ER+ cases we observed (10.6%) is consistent with a recent OTTA study, which found that 16% of MOC had strong ER expression [37], but others report rates as low as 4% up to 19% [41][42][43][44]. None of the MOC cases in our cohort appear to have received hormonal therapy, hence hormonal response data within this cohort is unknown.…”

The positivity of estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor may not be associated with metastasis and recurrence in epithelial ovarian cancer

“…The expression of estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) in ovarian tissue (n = 894) was measured by immunohistochemistry on paraffin-embedded sections and read automatically (Leica Bond III, Germany) as described previously 40 . In the current study, 577 cases overlapped with previous study 40 . Briefly, antigen retrieval was performed by heating in Bond epitope retrieval solution 2 (ph 9.0) for 20 minutes.…”

Role for Growth Regulation by Estrogen in Breast Cancer 1 (GREB1) in Hormone-Dependent Cancers

“…Likewise, the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer is increased by long-term exposure to estrogen, as occurs in early menarche, late menopause, and in the context of hormone replacement therapy [ 13 , 14 ]. Indeed, one study of 394 serous epithelial ovarian cancer patients reported that 86% of tumors were ER-positive [ 15 ]. Moreover, when ER-positive epithelial ovarian cancer cells were implanted in the peritoneal cavity of mice, estrogen significantly increased tumorigenesis, promoted lymph node metastasis, and decreased survival [ 16 , 17 ].…”

“…Accounting for almost 90% of cases, epithelial ovarian cancers are classified into several subtypes, of which serous tumors are the most notable [ 66 ]. A key study reported that 86% of serous epithelial ovarian tumors are ER-positive [ 15 ]. In vitro, estrogen can stimulate the proliferation of ER-positive ovarian cancer cell lines [ 69 ].…”