title: Assessment of HER-2/neu status in breast cancer using fluorescence in situ hybridization & immunohistochemistry: Experience of a tertiary cancer referral centre in India.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Determination of HER2 status in breast cancer has become important to identify potential candidates for anti-HER2 therapy. In this study we compared fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) for the determination of HER2 status in breast cancer patients referred to a tertiary care referral centre.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 200 cases of invasive breast cancer were evaluated for HER2 status using IHC and FISH and results were compared.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The IHC 3+ (93.9%) and IHC negative (85.9%) cases showed good concordance with the corresponding FISH results; while 66.6 per cent of IHC 2+ cases showed gene amplification by FISH. In addition, hormone receptor expression and HER2 gene status showed a statistically significant inverse association (P<0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings reaffirm IHC as a prudent first-step to screen tissue samples for HER2 status and to determine suitability for technically demanding FISH test and the dual coloured FISH as a gold standard for determination of HER2/neu status in IHC equivocal cases of breast carcinoma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Tata Memorial Hospital, Dr E. Borges Road, Mumbai, India.
authors.forename: Poonam
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Panjwani
authors.forename: Sridhar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Epari
authors.forename: Arti
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Karpate
authors.forename: Hemlata
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shirsat
authors.forename: Preetha
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rajsekharan
authors.forename: Ranjan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Basak
authors.forename: Tanuja
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shet
authors.forename: Roshni
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Chinoy
authors.forename: Roy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Chacko
authors.forename: Sampada
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gursale
authors.forename: Nayana
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Baraskar
authors.forename: Sudeep
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: Rohini
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hawaldar
authors.forename: Sangeeta
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Desai
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D017404:In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods*; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000032:analysis* / Q000235:genetics; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; C508053:ERBB2 protein, human