Abstract
The estrogen (ER) or progesterone receptors (PR) is positively associated with better clinical outcomes in ovarian cancer. Whether metastasis or recurrence of ovarian cancer is correlated with this association has not been investigated. Data on 894 women with epithelial ovarian cancer were collected and the association between ER or PR positivity and peritoneal or lymph node metastases or recurrence was analysed. ER or PR positivity was higher in high-grade, low-grade serous and endometrioid carcinoma, but lower in mucinous and clear-cell carcinoma. Significantly higher ER or PR positivity was seen in endometrioid carcinoma or high-grade serous carcinoma with peritoneal metastases, respectively, but not other subtypes. In addition, there was no significant difference in ER or PR positivity between cases with and without lymph node metastasis in these five subtypes. In recurrent high-grade serous carcinoma with peritoneal metastases (n = 103), the positivity of ER or PR was 86% and 55% respectively. Our data demonstrate that the association between ER or PR positivity and peritoneal metastases was only seen in endometrioid or high grade serous carcinoma, respectively. There was no association of ER or PR positivity and lymph node metastases. The majority of recurrent high-grade serous carcinoma with peritoneal metastases (86%) were ER positive.
Highlights
Ovarian cancer is the third most common gynaecological malignancy and one of the leading causes of death in gynaecological cancers globally[1]
There is no clear clinical prognostic marker in ovarian cancer, we have previously reported that circulating levels of Heat shock protein (HSP) 27 as well as expression of HSP27 in ovarian cancer tissue are correlated with peritoneal metastases in epithelial ovarian cancer[12,13]
The expression of estrogen receptor (ER) or progesterone receptor (PR) in tumor tissues has been shown to be positively correlated with the clinical outcomes in gynecological cancers including ovarian cancer, this has been debated for many years due to study sample sizes and the influence of ethnicitic differences
Summary
Ovarian cancer is the third most common gynaecological malignancy and one of the leading causes of death in gynaecological cancers globally[1]. The positivity of estrogen receptor (ER) is proportionally higher in recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer (high-grade serous carcinoma) with peritoneal metastases. Epithelial ovarian cancer is generally divided in high grade serous, low grade serous, mucinous, endometrioid and clear-cell carcinoma.
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