HER-2, Hormone Receptors, and clinicopathologic characteristics in Uruguayan breast cancer patients

Abstract

e22202 Background: Few Latin-American studies and none Uruguayan study have evaluated HER-2, estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) in breast cancer (BC). The purpose of the study was to investigate the frequency of these markers and the relationship between them and with clinicopathologic features in Uruguayan BC patients (pts). Methods: We retrospectively reviewed clinical records from pts who underwent curative surgery for stage I-III invasive BC at the Oncology Units of 4 institutions in Montevideo between march 2006 and march 2008. We obtained the following data: age, TNM, ER/PR status by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and HER2 status by IHC and FISH in HER2 IHC 2+. Fisher's exact test was used to analyze the data. Results: 427 pts were included. Median age was 60 years-old (range: 24–93 y), postmenopausal 75%, stages: I 33%, II 42%, III 23%, unknown 2%. ER/PR status was known in 94,6% of cases: ER+/PR+ 66,1%, ER+/PR- 11,1%, ER-/PR+ 3,5%, ER-/PR- 19,3%. HER2 status was known in 47% (199/427) of cases, being positive (IHC 3+ or FISH+) in 13.6%. Triple negative tumors were found in 32 of 199 pts (16%). HER2 was positive in 8% of pts with ER+ and/or PR+ tumors, and in 18% of pts with ER-PR- disease (p=0.08). We did not find a significant association between axillary lymph node status and HER2 status. Besides, triple negative BC did not correlate with axillary lymph node status. When analized by menopausal status, the frequency of triple negative pts was 14% in the premenopausal group and 4% in the postmenopausal group (p=0.005). In addition, the rate of triple negative BC was 0% in pts with histologic grade 1 and 10% in pts with histologic grade 2–3 (p = 0.0005). Conclusions: Our data from Uruguayan pts show a lower prevalence of HER2 positive but a similar prevalence of ER+ and PR+ operable BC than the prevalence reported in most American and European studies. In accordance with previous reports, triple negative BC correlated with younger age and higher histologic grade. No significant financial relationships to disclose.