Estrogen, Progesterone Receptors and Proliferating Activity Evaluated by Immunocytochemistry in Breast Cancer

Abstract

The correlation of the most important prognostic indicators was evaluated in 75 breast cancer cases. Estrogen-progesterone receptors and proliferating activity were analyzed by immunocytochemical methods (ER-ICA, PR-ICA, Ki-67). Both steroid receptors were inversely correlated with the proliferating activity (ER-ICA vs Ki-67, p less than 0.003; PR-ICA vs. Ki-67, p less than 0.0001). No correlation was found between steroid receptors or cell kinetics and tumor size or lymph node status. These findings confirm the relevance of biochemical and kinetic parameters as independent markers in breast cancer and suggest a routine use of the simple immunocytochemical methods in assessing the biological behavior of tumors.

Ki-67 expression in primary breast carcinomas and their axillary lymph node metastases: clinical implications

“…Previous studies have reported significant associations between high Ki-67 index and clinicohistopathological parameters, such as age [18,22], tumour size [18,30,32], histologic grade [2,3,18,27,32], ER/PgR status [6,8,18,27,30,32] and lymph node status [32]. We found a statistically significant correlation of high Ki-67 expression in metastatic breast cancer with increasing histologic grade, negative ER/PgR status, size of largest metastatic focus, but not with age, cancer type, tumour size and the number of nodes involved.…”

Receptor Status, Proliferating Activity, and c‐erbB2 Oncoprotein

“…* The results of this work are in agreement with the data available in the literature and confirm our previous data. 9 Various methods have been used to assess the cell kinetics in carcinomas, the most suitable of which is still considered to be the thymidine labeling index (TLI). lo A new immunocytochemical technique, namely Ki-67, has been reported to correlate with TLI.2 Several studies have shown no correlation between lymph node status and proliferating activity, as determined by both TLI" and Ki-67.…”

Expression of interleukin 6 (IL-6) correlates with oestrogen receptor in human breast carcinoma

“…Negative control sections were incubated with normal mouse serum. As previously reported (Campani et al, 1991), the evaluation of Ki67 was expressed as the percentage of positive cells. For each tumour section, at least 25 microscopic fields (40 ϫ objective) were analysed.…”

“…The presence of oestrogen receptor (ER) was determined using the Abbott ER-ICA monoclonal kit (Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, MI, USA), as described (Campani et al, 1991). Briefly, rat anti-human ER antibody was incubated with frozen sections followed by a goat anti-rat IgG and revealed with a rat peroxidase-anti-peroxidase complex.…”

“…The percentage was calculated dividing the number of Ki67-positive neoplastic cells by the total number of cells counted, and the result multiplied by 100. Tumours were classified as highly proliferating if more than 10% (median value of the distribution) of cells were immunoreactive (Campani et al, 1991).…”