Correlation between Strength of Estrogen Receptor positivity and Outcome of Adjuvant Tamoxifen Therapy in Breast Cancer Patients

Khalifa, Mohamed; Allahloubi, Nasr Mohamed; Salem, Salem Eid; Mahmoud, Mohamed Ghareeb; Zekri, Abdelrahman Nabawy

doi:10.21608/zumj.2020.31917.1873

Correlation between Strength of Estrogen Receptor positivity and Outcome of Adjuvant Tamoxifen Therapy in Breast Cancer Patients

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Medical Oncology, faculty of medicine, Zagazig university, Egypt

² Department of Medical Oncology, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, Egypt

³ Department of cancer biology, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, Egypt

10.21608/zumj.2020.31917.1873

Abstract

This study aimed to assess the impact of estrogen receptor grade of positivity on the outcome of estrogen receptor positive breast cancer patients receiving adjuvant tamoxifen. This retrospective study included 100 ER-positive breast cancer patients who received adjuvant tamoxifen and followed up in the period from June 2009 until December 2018. Levels of ER staining intensity was measured as the percentage of cells staining positive for ER by immunohistochemistry and graded as mild (1-10%), moderate (11-50%) and high (> 50%). The degree of intensity was correlated disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS).. Only one patient had weak ER positivity, 49% was moderate while 50% of cases had strong positivity. Patients with strong ER positive disease had significantly prolonged OS (p=0.018) and superior DFS but of borderline significance (p=0.064) when compared with moderate or weak positivity. There is growing body of evidence supporting the utility of degree of estrogen positivity as prognostic factors hormone receptor positive breast cancer patients.

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