Estrogen receptor beta expression in triple negative breast cancers is not associated with recurrence or survival
Journal Title
BMC Cancer
Publication Type
Research article
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Triple negative BCa (TNBC) is defined by a lack of expression of estrogen (ERalpha), progesterone (PgR) receptors and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) as assessed by protein expression and/or gene amplification. It makes up ~ 15% of all BCa and often has a poor prognosis. TNBC is not treated with endocrine therapies as ERalpha and PR negative tumors in general do not show benefit. However, a small fraction of the true TNBC tumors do show tamoxifen sensitivity, with those expressing the most common isoform of ERbeta1 having the most benefit. Recently, the antibodies commonly used to assess ERbeta1 in TNBC have been found to lack specificity, which calls into question available data regarding the proportion of TNBC that express ERbeta1 and any relationship to clinical outcome. METHODS: To confirm the true frequency of ERbeta1 in TNBC we performed robust ERbeta1 immunohistochemistry using the specific antibody CWK-F12 ERbeta1 on 156 primary TNBC cancers from patients with a median of 78 months (range 0.2-155 months) follow up. RESULTS: We found that high expression of ERbeta1 was not associated with increased recurrence or survival when assessed as percentage of ERbeta1 positive tumor cells or as Allred > 5. In contrast, the non-specific PPG5-10 antibody did show an association with recurrence and survival. CONCLUSIONS: Our data indicate that ERbeta1 expression in TNBC tumours does not associate with prognosis.
Publisher
BioMed Central
Keywords
Humans; Female; Estrogen Receptor beta/genetics; Estrogen Receptor alpha/genetics; *Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms/metabolism; *Breast Neoplasms/drug therapy; Tamoxifen/therapeutic use; Prognosis; Receptors, Estrogen; Receptor, ErbB-2/therapeutic use; Receptors, Progesterone/metabolism; Estrogen receptor beta; Outcome; Sensitivity; Tamoxifen; Triple negative breast cancer
Department(s)
Pathology; Laboratory Research; Medical Oncology
PubMed ID
37208678
Open Access at Publisher's Site
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-023-10795-5
Terms of Use/Rights Notice
Refer to copyright notice on published article.


Creation Date: 2023-09-05 06:33:31
Last Modified: 2023-09-05 06:34:32

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