Human breast cancer: identification of populations with a high risk of early relapse in relation to both oestrogen receptor status and c-erbB-2 overexpression.
We recently defined a new early prognostic factor, the ER+(R) status, which permits the discrimination of a group presenting a high risk of early relapse among the ER+ patients. This group was referred to as ER+(R2) in contrast to ER+(R1) which corresponded to the group of ER+ patients having a lower risk of early relapse. Taking into account the whole population including the ER- and inflammatory tumours, we have extended this view and showed that ER+(R) status is a significant predictor of disease-free survival. Determination of c-erbB-2 mRNA levels in the same series of tumours showed that high expression of c-erbB-2 mRNA is significantly correlated with ER-, inflammatory tumours and with lymph nodes involvement. Moreover, a multivariate analysis showed that c-erbB-2 mRNA overexpression was a significant predictor of early relapse (P = 0.02), as significant as ER negativity and ER+(R2). For ER+ patients a high level of c-erbB-2 mRNA constitutes a higher risk of relapse for both ER+(R1) and ER+(R2) patients. However, in the case of ER- patients, early relapses were strongly correlated with c-erbB-2 overexpression. The counterpart of this observation is that ER- patients with no overexpression of c-erbB-2 constitute a group with a relatively good prognosis.
May
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E
Laboratory of Molecular Oncology IRSC, Villejuif, France.
Mouriesse
H
H
May-Levin
F
F
Qian
J F
JF
May
P
P
Delarue
J C
JC
D000367:Age Factors; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000032:analysis; D015152:Blotting, Northern; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015870:Gene Expression; D006801:Humans; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local; D011379:Prognosis; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D012307:Risk Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen