HER-2/Neu and Hormone Receptor Analysis in Breast Carcinomas and Their Association with Clinicopathologic Parameters

Abstract

Objective: Invasive breast carcinomas of no special type (IC-NST) are the heterogeneous tumours showing distinct prognostic features even inpatients with similar clinicopathological characteristics. To date, many clinicopathological data have been analyzed to make a guess about prognosisand to determine treatment modality. In this study, HER-2/neu status was analyzed by using both immunohistochemical (IHC) and fluorescence insitu hybridization (FISH) methods, and its correlations with hormone receptor status and clinicopathological parameters were investigated.Materials and Methods: The study was included 112 female patients with diagnosis of IC-NST. FISH for HER-2/neu was applied in onlyprimary tumour tissues, while IHC analyses for HER-2/neu, estrogen (ER) and progesterone receptors (PR) were applied on both primary andmetastatic lymph node foci. The results were compared with appropriate statistical methods.Results: Our rates of HER-2/neu overexpression and gene amplification in the overall study group were 22.3 and 25%, respectively. In the metastaticgroup, these rates were higher than those of the overall study group (34% and 40%, respectively). Gene amplification rate of the axilla positivegroup was 40%, while this rate in non-metastatic group was 6.7% (p=0.015). Overexpression and amplification results were compliant (χ2=77,591,p