A study of prognostic factors of breast cancer in relation to ER/PR/HER 2NEU expression

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer is a disease with a wide spectrum of clinical, pathologic, and molecular features. It is one of commonest malignancy amongst Indian women. Adjuvant therapy, which helps in prolonging survival, is determined by the expression of Estrogen Receptor (ER), Progesterone Receptor (PR) and Human Epidermal Receptor (HER2/neu) on the cancer cells. Aims and Objectives: This study is carried out to look into the association of patient age, tumor grade and lymph node stage with ER PR HER2/neu expression. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted in the Department of Pathology of Subbaiah institute of medical sciences, Shimoga from July 1st to December 31 of 2018. The sample size is 30. Mastectomy specimens were assessed with respect to different parameters like patient age, tumour size, histological grade, lymph node stage and correlated with the ER, PR, HER2/ neu score. ER positive tumors were considered to have favourable receptor expression while triple negative followed by ER negative tumors were considered to have unfavourable receptor expression. Results and Analysis: Our study showed that breast cancers are more common in women aged more than 40 years but younger women had more triple negative and ER negative, which are unfavourable receptor expression. Also, Compared to grade to II, grade III had more triple negative expression. Although, N1 lymph node stage was most common, unfavourable expression was more common in N3 stage. Lymphnode metastasis was more aggressive in younger people. Conclusion: Younger women who had higher grade and aggressive nodal involvement with poor prognosis showed unfavourable expression of receptors. ER/PR/HER2 subtype is thus simple, inexpensive, easy to interpret test for clinicians. Patient survival and prognosis is helped by early diagnosis and treatment.