title: Relationship of oestrogen receptor status to depressive symptoms and quality of life in breast cancer patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We investigated the relationship of oestrogen receptor (ER) status to the severity of depressive symptoms and quality of life (QOL) impairment in breast cancer patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Seventy-seven breast cancer patients with comorbid depression were evaluated with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD), the Clinical Global Impression-Severity of Illness (CGI-S) for depression, and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast (FACT-B). ER status was determined using immunohistochemical analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The ER-positive group (n = 31) showed significantly higher scores compared with the ER-negative group (n = 46) on HAMD total (p = 0.04) and somatic anxiety factor (p = 0.004) scores as well as CGI-S score (p = 0.03). As for QOL measured with the FACT-B, a significantly higher score was found on the Functional Well-Being (FWB) subscale in the ER-positive group (p = 0.001). The relationships were further analysed using generalised linear models (GLM), after controlling for the influence of the current anti-oestrogen treatment. The analysis revealed that ER status was still significantly related to the FWB subscale score of the FACT-B (p = 0.04). However, the HAMD and CGI-S scores were no longer significantly related to ER status after the influence of anti-oestrogen treatment was controlled for.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results suggest that ER status, which is a well-known biological prognostic factor in breast cancer, may be related to the severity of certain aspects of depressive symptoms or QOL impairment, implying a role of the ER in affective and behavioural regulation. However, anti-oestrogen treatments significantly influence these relationships.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychiatry, Gil Medical Center, Gachon University, Incheon, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jong-Hoon
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: 2 Department of Neuropsychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Byoung-Jo
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: 4 Department of Psychiatry, Inha University College of Medicine, Incheon, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jae-Nam
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Bae
authors.affiliation: 2 Department of Neuropsychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Bong-Jin
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Hahm