ORIGINAL ARTICLES

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

S Borgquist^1,2, C Holm¹, M Stendahl¹, L Anagnostaki¹, G Landberg¹ and K Jirström¹

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.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Paulsson, J., Sjoblom, T., Micke, P., Ponten, F., Landberg, G., Heldin, C.-H., Bergh, J., Brennan, D. J., Jirstrom, K., Ostman, A. (2009). Prognostic Significance of Stromal Platelet-Derived Growth Factor {beta}-Receptor Expression in Human Breast Cancer. Am. J. Pathol. 175: 334-341 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Helczynska, K., Larsson, A.-M., Holmquist Mengelbier, L., Bridges, E., Fredlund, E., Borgquist, S., Landberg, G., Pahlman, S., Jirstrom, K. (2008). Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-2{alpha} Correlates to Distant Recurrence and Poor Outcome in Invasive Breast Cancer. Cancer Res. 68: 9212-9220 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Sonestedt, E., Borgquist, S., Ericson, U., Gullberg, B., Olsson, H., Adlercreutz, H., Landberg, G., Wirfalt, E. (2008). Enterolactone Is Differently Associated with Estrogen Receptor {beta}-Negative and -Positive Breast Cancer in a Swedish Nested Case-Control Study. Cancer Epidemiol. Biomarkers Prev. 17: 3241-3251 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Sonestedt, E., Borgquist, S., Ericson, U., Gullberg, B., Landberg, G., Olsson, H., Wirfalt, E. (2008). Plant foods and oestrogen receptor {alpha}- and {beta}-defined breast cancer: observations from the Malmo Diet and Cancer cohort. Carcinogenesis 29: 2203-2209 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Speirs, V, Green, C A, Shaaban, A M (2008). Oestrogen receptor {beta} immunohistochemistry: time to get it right?. J. Clin. Pathol. 61: 1150-1151 [Full Text]  

eLetters:

Read all eLetters

Estrogen receptor beta immunohistochemistry: time to get it right

Valerie Speirs, et al.

JCP Online, 31 Mar 2008 [Full text]