ESTROGEN RECEPTORS

Abstract

Objectives: Purpose of study is to determine Estrogen receptor status ininflammatory and neoplastic lesions of human gallbladder and to determine any relation ofER status with age, sex and histological grades of gallbladder carcinoma. Study Design:Retrospective observational study. Setting: Pathology Department Nishtar Medical CollegeMultan. Period: March 2016 to March 2017. Methodology: In this study total no. of 50 cases ofdifferent gallbladder diseases were included. Out of these 50 cases 30 were of neoplastic lesionsand other 20 were of non-neoplastic inflammatory lesions of gallbladder. The gallbladdersslides of these 50 cases were randomly selected from the records of Pathology Department.Demographic variables like age and gender were calculated and analyzed. Estrogen positivitywas the outcome variable of this study. Data was analyzed using computer software SPSSversion 23. Chi square Test was applied to check the association between different variables.Results: In this study, 100% (n=50) diagnosed cases of human gallbladder diseases includinginflammatory and neoplastic lesions were subjected to immunohistochemical staining for ERexpression. 100% (n=20) cases of inflammatory lesions and 100% (n=30) cases of neoplasticlesions were included, in this study. Estrogen positivity was noted in 36.7% (n=11) cases ofneoplastic lesions, while it was 25% (n=5) in inflammatory lesions cases. No association wasfound between estrogen positivity in groups, (÷2=0.751, p=0.386). (Table1).Histological typesof gallbladder carcinoma was noted as adenocarcinomas (well differentiated) in 60% (n=18)cases, adenocarcinomas (moderately differentiated) in 16.7% (n=5) cases, adenocarcinomas(poorly differentiated) in 13.4% (n=4) cases, mucinous adenocarcinomas in 1% (n=3.3) cases,adenosquamus carcinoma in 1% (n=3.3) cases and squamous cell carcinoma in 1% (n=3.3)cases. (Table2).No association was found between gender (p=0.780), stratified age (p=868)and estrogen positivity (p=0.386), after applying the chi-square. Conclusion: In this study itwas concluded that statistically no significant difference has been found between ER positivitywith age, gender and histological type of carcinoma. Presence of ER raises questions regardingthe role of estrogen in various gallbladder diseases and whether this hormone is functional ornot in neoplastic lesions is also questionable. Techniques more modified may be tried in searchof better and more reliable results. It is therefore too early to consider anti-estrogen trials ingallbladder carcinoma until the role of these steroid binding proteins is well characterized.