Hormone Receptors: Association with Prognostic Factors for Breast Cancer

Abstract

Positivity for hormonal receptors (HR) in breast cancer patients is associated both with a better prognosis, and with variables predictive of favorable prognosis. A study was designed to assess predictors of positivity of estrogen (ER) and progesterone receptors (PR). Data from 306 patientes with infiltrating ductal carcinomas who were consecutively diagnosed and treated over a period of 20 months were included. Selected variables related to patients and tumors (micro and macroscopic characteristics as well as immunohistochemically-determined tumor markers) were studied. Bivariate analysis showed that some of variables were associated (p < 0.05) with the HR positivity: age > 60 years, post-menopause, age at menarche (> 11 years), tumor size (< 4,0 cm), histological grade (low), nuclear pleomorphism (low), number of mitoses (low), MIB-1 (negative) and p53 (negative). Unconditional logistic regression revealed that the following variables were independent predictive factors of positivity of ER: age > 60 years (p < 0,001), histological grade I (p < 0,05), positive PR (p < 0,001) and negative p53 (p < 0,05). For PR, two models were evaluated: a) age > 60 years (p < 0,05), age at menarche > 11 years (p < 0,05) and histological grades I and II (p < 0,05); b) histological grades I and II (p<0,05) and positive ER (p< 0,001). In this study, only age at diagnosis, histological grade, PR and p53 were independents predictors of positivity of ER. Age at diagnosis, age at menarche and histological grade (or histological grade and ER) predicted a positive PR.