Serum glycoprotein hormone α subunit, hormone receptors and disease stage in patients with breast cancer

Abstract

Summary.-The concentration of the common a subunit of the glycoprotein hormones was high in the serum of 21/56 (38o%) of premenopausal patients and 22/106 (21 %) of postmenopausal patients with primary breast cancer, at the time of presentation. 7/59 (12%) of patients with benign disease also had high a subunit levels. Tumour cytosol oestrogen and progesterone receptor status was determined in 80% of the patients with cancer, and there was a trend towards higher a levels in patients without receptors, but this was not statistically significant. In the premenopausal patients with cancer there was a significant correlation between a subunit level and disease stage, R=0.47, P=0.0001, but not in the postmenopausal patients. In view of the correlation with disease stage, high levels of a subunit in premenopausal patients with breast cancer at presentation with the primary tumour may indicate poor prognosis.THE COMMON ax subunit of the glycoprotein hormones (thyroid-stimulating hormone-TSH; follicle-stimulating hormone FSH; luteinizing hormone LH, and chorionic gonadotrophin hCG) has been found in breast-tumour cultures (Cove et al., 1979; Miller et al., unpubl.). Immunoperoxidase staining has demonstrated the presence of oa subunit in histological specimens of breast carcinomas, and lymph-node metastases found at the initial operation are said to be common in patients with ay subunit-positive primary tumours (Walker, 1978).Increased concentrations of oa subunit have been found in the serum of persons with various benign and malignant conditions (Dosogne-Guerin et al., 1978;Braunstein et al., 1979) and we report here a study of serum a subunit levels in a large consecutive series of patients presenting with primary breast cancer, and compare them with oa subunit levels in patients with benign breast disease and a normal control population. In order to define the importance of serum oa subunit measurement in our breast-cancer patients, we have correlated oa levels with the tumour hormonereceptor status and disease stage at removal of the primary tumour, both factors known to influence patient survival (Say & Donegan, 1974; Hahnel et al., 1979 and 106 postmenopausal patients, median age 61 yrs (range 33-82).