title: A simplified histoscore for the estrogen receptor assay in breast cancer.
abstract: Different histoscores combining the number of positive cells and the intensity of staining have been used to evaluate the estrogen receptor immunocytochemical assay (ER-ICA). Our aim was to investigate if the simple estimation of the amount of positive cells could be sufficient for the semiquantitative analysis of ER-ICA. Tissue from 51 women with ductal breast carcinoma was used. Half of each sample was processed with the quantitative assay (ER-EIA) and the other half with ER-ICA. Microscopical analysis was performed by two independent observers and classified on a simple scale from 0 to 4+. With EIA 31 cases (60.78%) were positive and 20 (39.21%) negative. With ER-ICA 29 (56.86%) had immunostaining, whereas 22 (43.13%) did not. 95.83% of the ER-ICA positive cases and 77.7% of ER-ICA negative had a good correlation with EIA values. Statistical analysis showed a high degree of correlation (r = 0.88 p 0.001). Hence, simple semiquantitative estimation in ER-ICA is sufficient to provide useful information for clinical use about ER content in tissue sections.
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Investigación Clínica en Enfermedades Oncológicas, Hospital de Oncología, México.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Benítez-Bribiesca
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Guevara
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Ruiz
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Martínez
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Cuevas
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000473:pathology / Q000648:ultrastructure; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000032:analysis; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000473:pathology / Q000648:ultrastructure; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000473:pathology / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry / Q000379:methods*; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen / Q000032:analysis*; D013223:Statistics as Topic
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen