QUANTITATIVE IMAGE ANALYSIS OF ESTROGEN AND PROGESTERONE RECEPTORS AS A PROGNOSTIC TOOL FOR SELECTING BREAST CANCER PATIENTS FOR THERAPY

To assess estrogen and progesterone receptor presence in human breast tumors using immunocytochemical analysis.For both estrogen (ER) and progesterone (PR) receptor assay, percent of stained cells and intensity of staining were estimated on a series of 251 consecutive breast cancer cases from the M. Ascoli Cancer Hospital Center in Palermo using the CAS 200 image analysis system.Cytochemical assay revealed a differential distribution of both ER and PR, by menopausal status of the patients; premenopause (PreM) was mostly ER negative (63%), and postmenopause (PostM) > 10 years was mostly ER and PR positive (64%). The percent of cells stained for ER was significantly different between PreM and PostM patients when they were considered as a whole. By contrast, no difference emerged for PR staining among menopausal groups. Overall, patients whose tumors were PR positive showed a significantly (P < .03) longer interval free of relapse.The present results suggest that PRs behave as better indicators than ERs of early relapse in breast cancer patients. Further studies, with longer follow-up, are needed, however, to validate this concept.