Abstract
Endocrine therapy (ET) is one of the main systemic treatments for patients with breast cancer. To our knowledge, few studies have addressed the performance of ET or relevant influencing factors in cancer treatment in China. By retrospectively analyzing the clinicopathological data on breast cancer collected from representative hospitals of 7 traditional areas in China in one random month from each year between year 1999 and 2008, we found that: 1) The rate of the use of hormone receptor (HR) testing was 83.8% (3529/4211), with the estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) rate and/or the progesterone receptor-positive (PR+) rate being 67.9% (2395/3529), and the ER-PR rate being 32.1% (1134/3529). 2) Of the 1599 patients who had received ET, 999 patients (58.3%) were premenopausal while 600 (41.7%) were postmenopausal; 1598 patients received adjuvant hormonal therapy (AHT), whereas only 1 patient received palliative therapy. The medications mainly administered to patients were anti-estrogen agents (80.3% [1283/1598]), followed by AIs (15.5% [248/1598]). Of the 1598 patients receiving AHT, 1416 patients (88.6%) were positive for ER and/or PR, while 75 (4.7%) were negative for both and 108 patients (6.7%) had unknown HR status. The ratio of the use of endocrine therapy for breast cancer patients with ER+ and/or PR+ status was 60.0% (1416/2395). 3) Results from the logistic regression analysis revealed that geography, occupations, and history of chemotherapy and surgery were dependent factors affecting the application of ET in breast cancer treatment in China (P<0.001). In conclusion, the use of ET on Chinese women with breast cancer is increasingly and gradually accounted into the standardized process. Economic status, occupations, and history of chemotherapy and surgery were key factors affecting the application of ET. People residing in developed areas, engaging in mental labour, having history of chemotherapy and surgery are susceptible to accept ET.
Highlights
The application of endocrine therapy (ET) can be traced back to year 1896, when the English scholar Beatson performed oophorectomies for treatment of pre-menopausal advanced breast cancer[6]
Among the 2395 patients with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, 1691 (47.9%) cases were positive for estrogen receptor (ER) and progestin receptor (PR) (ER+PR+ ), 337 (9.6%) cases were positive for ER but negative for PR (ER+ PR-), 367 (10.4%) cases were negative for ER but positive for PR positive (ER-PR+), and the remaining 1134 cases (32.1%) were negative for both (ER-PR-).When it comes to regional factors, we found that the highest proportion of patients with ER+PR+ resided in north China (61.2% [373/610]), the highest proportion of patients with ER+PR- resided in southwest China (11.8% [51/ 431]), the highest proportion of patients with ER-PR+ resided in northeast China (15.2% [108/711]), and the highest proportion of patients with ER-PR- resided in middle China (38.1% [203/533])
Hormone receptors are biological markers which are most closely associated with the incidence, development, and prognosis of breast cancer and are needed to determine whether the breast cancer is invasive or not
Summary
The application of endocrine therapy (ET) can be traced back to year 1896, when the English scholar Beatson performed oophorectomies for treatment of pre-menopausal advanced breast cancer[6]. Surgery for removal of endocrine glands, such as adrenalectomy[3,4], oophorectomy[4], or hypophysectomy[3,4,5], and administration of medications such as androgens[6,7], estrogen[5], anti-estrogens (tamoxifen) [8,9,10,11], or aromatase inhibitors (AIs) [12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22] have been used as part of a comprehensive breast cancer treatment plan. The expressions of ER and PR are important indicators for guiding breast cancer ET decisions and determining ET strategies [23,24,25]. The result of ER testing is an indicator for deciding whether the breast cancer is hormone-dependent (ER-positive) and hormone-independent (ER-negative)) [23,24]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
