Steroid hormone receptor status and other immunohistochemical prognostic markers in benign and malignant diseases of the breast

: In addition to classical morphological prognosis factors of breast carcinoma (pTNM stage, tumor grading, histological typing), many other immunohistochemical markers of different prognostic value exist.--The comparative estrogen (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) analysis of normal and pathological breast tissue showed a gradually inverse biological correlation between the decrease of ER+PR+ and the increase of ER-PR-frequency from benign breast changes to noninvasive and invasive breast carcinomas. In benign breast epithelium, ER+PR+ and ER-PR+ might be regarded as low-risk phenotype, whereas ER+PR- and ER-PR- could be estimated as high-risk phenotype in view of a later dedifferentiation and possible malignization.--During carcinogenesis, the initial loss of epithelial growth factor receptor (EGF-R) as well as its later neoexpression could be regarded as a progression maker.--The proliferation rate (Ki67) in breast cancer significantly correlates with increasing grading and apoptosis rate, whereas the expression of bcl-2-protooncogene is inverse to increasing grading. As for the prognostic value of the single factors, it is supposed that they mostly might represent "one piece of a larger puzzle" [13].