Prognostic significance of estrogen receptor alpha and beta expression in human serous carcinomas of the ovary.
BACKGROUND
Ovarian cancer is a gynecologic cancer with a high mortality rate. This shows the need of effective screening methods and reliable cancer markers for ovarian cancer staging and appropriate effective cancer treatment.


METHODS
Expression of estrogen receptor alpha and beta was studied by immunhistochemical analysis of 100 ovarian cancer tissue samples.


RESULTS
In this study on 100 serous ovarian cancer tissue samples from patients with defined clinicopathologic features, a significant association of ER-alpha expression with ovarian cancer grading (p = 0.004), progression-free survival (p = 0.007), and cause-specific survival (p = 0.001) was demonstrated. Expression of ER-beta was found to be associated with the metastatic lymph node status (p = 0.006).


CONCLUSIONS
Immunohistochemical analysis of ER might be used as an easy, simple and highly efficient marker to identify high-risk patients and may aid in the selection of patients for a more aggressive adjuvant therapy. Furthermore, patients that show a positive ER-alpha immunostaining can be selected for a specific anti-hormonal therapy, as already performed for breast cancer patients.
Burges
Alexander
A
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Campus Grosshadern, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.
Brüning
Ansgar
A
Dannenmann
Christine
C
Blankenstein
Thomas
T
Jeschke
Udo
U
Shabani
Naim
N
Friese
Klaus
K
Mylonas
Ioannis
I
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D018284:Cystadenocarcinoma, Serous / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D047628:Estrogen Receptor alpha / Q000378:metabolism*; D047629:Estrogen Receptor beta / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008875:Middle Aged; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D012042:Registries; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D055815:Young Adult
D047628:Estrogen Receptor alpha; D047629:Estrogen Receptor beta