Abstract
We recently defined a new early prognostic factor, the ER+(R) status, which permits the discrimination of a group presenting a high risk of early relapse among the ER+ patients. This group was referred to as ER+(R2) in contrast to ER+(R1) which corresponded to the group of ER+ patients having a lower risk of early relapse. Taking into account the whole population including the ER- and inflammatory tumours, we have extended this view and showed that ER+(R) status is a significant predictor of disease-free survival. Determination of c-erbB-2 mRNA levels in the same series of tumours showed that high expression of c-erbB-2 mRNA is significantly correlated with ER-, inflammatory tumours and with lymph nodes involvement. Moreover, a multivariate analysis showed that c-erbB-2 mRNA overexpression was a significant predictor of early relapse (P = 0.02), as significant as ER negativity and ER+(R2). For ER+ patients a high level of c-erbB-2 mRNA constitutes a higher risk of relapse for both ER+(R1) and ER+(R2) patients. However, in the case of ER- patients, early relapses were strongly correlated with c-erbB-2 overexpression. The counterpart of this observation is that ER- patients with no overexpression of c-erbB-2 constitute a group with a relatively good prognosis.
Highlights
Summary We recently defined a new early prognostic factor, the ER+(R) status, which permits the discrimination of a group presenting a high risk of early relapse among the ER' patients
We performed a quantitative analysis of steady-state levels of c-erbB-2 mRNA on the same RNA preparations except for one additional ER- carcinoma
Fiftyseven per cent of the population correspond to this c-erbB-2 mRNA level (Figure 2)
Summary
Samples of untreated and non-metastatic breast carcinomas were obtained by biopsy or tumorectomy from 89 patients treated at 'Institut Gustave-Roussy' (Villejuif, France). The remaining 13 patients had an inflammatory non-metastatic tumour. This diagnosis was made on the basis of clinical symptoms (oedema, hotness, redness in more than one-third of the breast) and confirmed by biopsy. These patients were treated by association of chemo-, radio- and hormonotherapy. High stroma cell concentration was detected in only 11 tumours and distributed over the different groups of patients. Tumours with an ER level higher than 10 fmol mg-' of total protein were considered as positive. The following DNA or plasmid probes were used in this study after 32P-labelling by the 'random primed' DNA labelling method (Boehringer Kit, Mannheim); the 1200-bp Accl/ BamHI fragment of pMAC1 17 (ATCC collection) specific to the c-erbB-2 mRNA and chicken-specific f-actin (May et al, 1989)
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