title: Prognostic Significance of Single Progesterone Receptor Positivity: A Comparison Study of Estrogen Receptor Negative/Progesterone Receptor Positive/Her2 Negative Primary Breast Cancer With Triple Negative Breast Cancer.
abstract: Single progesterone receptor positive (PgR+), especially in form of ER-/PgR+/HER2-, is a nonnegligible phenomenon. Little is known about the characteristics and the role of single PgR positive in this phenotype. Therefore, we explore the significance of single PgR positivity by comparing ER-/PgR+/HER2- breast cancers with triple negative breast cancers (TNBCs).Three thousand nine hundred sixty-six cases of primary invasive breast carcinoma operated consecutively from January 2005 to May 2008 in Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences were examined. Two hundred forty (6%) cases were identified as ER-/PgR+/HER2- breast cancers and 348 (8.8%) cases as TNBCs. Clinicopathological characteristics and survivals were analyzed respectively and then compared between 2 subtypes.Compared with patients with TNBCs, ER-/PgR+/HER2- tumor tended to have lower tumor grade (Grade 3: 45.7% vs. 37.5%, P = 0.051) and smaller tumor size (P = 0.036). However, no differences were found between ER-/PgR+/HER2- and TNBC patients in relapse-free survival (RFS) and OS. The 5-year RFS rates were 80.7% and 77.4%, respectively (P = 0.330) and the 5-year OS rates were 88.0% and 85.2%, respectively (P = 0.290). ER-/PgR+/HER2- patients receiving adjuvant endocrine treatment had better RFS (P = 0.016) and overall survival (OS) (P < 0.0001) than patients receiving no endocrine therapy.This exclusive analysis of patients with ER-/PgR+/HER2- breast cancers showed that this subtype exhibited an aggressive behavior as TNBC, suggesting that it should also be regarded as biologically distinctive group and single PgR positive itself is not a good prognostic factor. However, adjuvant endocrine therapy could still benefit this group of patients. Further investigations should be done to elucidate the underlying mechanism.
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Hospital& Institute, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College (YF, BX, FM, PY, JW, PZ, QL, YL); and Department of Oncology, Beijing DiTan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, P.R. China (XD).
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Xiaoyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Binghe
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Jiayu
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Pin
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Luo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000378:metabolism*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D018270:Carcinoma, Ductal, Breast / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D060787:Neoplasm Grading; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000209:etiology; D011379:Prognosis; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000378:metabolism*; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen / Q000378:metabolism*; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone / Q000378:metabolism*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016019:Survival Analysis; D064726:Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D047368:Tumor Burden
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen; D011980:Receptors, Progesterone; C508053:ERBB2 protein, human