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Oestrogen receptors and β show different associations to clinicopathological parameters and their co-expression might predict a better response to endocrine treatment in breast cancer

¹ Division of Pathology, Department of Laboratory Medicine; Malmö University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden
² Division of Oncology, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University Hospital, Lund, Sweden

Correspondence to:
Karin Jirström, Division of Pathology, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Lund University, Malmö University Hospital, S-205 02 Malmö, Sweden; karin.jirstrom{at}med.lu.se

Aims: The majority of all breast cancers are hormone responsive, traditionally defined by the expression of oestrogen receptor (ER) and/or progesterone receptors. In contrast to ER, the clinical significance of the relatively recently identified ERβ is still unclear. This study aimed to define the relationship between ERβ and clinicopathological parameters in a mixed cohort of breast cancer and, furthermore, to investigate the impact of ERβ expression on disease outcome.

Methods: The immunohistochemical expression of ER and ERβ was analysed in tissue microarrays containing a total number of 512 tumours with all incident breast cancers diagnosed at the Malmö University Hospital between 1988 and 1992.

Results: 78% of the tumours were ER positive and 50% were ERβ positive. ERβ correlated positively with ER (p = 0.001). In contrast to ER, ERβ was not associated with any important clinicopathological variables. Furthermore, no overall prognostic significance could be demonstrated for ERβ. In the ER-positive subgroup, however, a low expression of ERβ correlated with a decreased disease-free survival in patients receiving endocrine treatment (p = 0.003).

Conclusions: Although interrelated, ER and ERβ seem to be differentially associated to clinicopathological parameters, and this would support the fact that they might have different functions in vivo. Furthermore, ERβ might be a predictive marker of response to endocrine therapy, although this needs to be confirmed in additional studies, preferably randomised trials.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				V Speirs, C A Green, and A M Shaaban Oestrogen receptor {beta} immunohistochemistry: time to get it right? J. Clin. Pathol., October 1, 2008; 61(10): 1150 - 1151. [Full Text] [PDF]

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