Estrogen receptor determination in percutaneous bone marrow biopsies of patients with metastatic breast cancer

Abstract

Estrogen receptor determination in metastatic breast cancer has been shown to be important in determining potential for response to endocrine therapy. One limitation to this procedure can be the availability of neoplastic material for receptor assay. This report describes patients in whom estrogen receptor status was determined using malignant cells obtained through routine posterior iliac crest bone marrow biopsy. The ability to obtain receptor data from percutaneous bone marrow biopsy specimens has proved to be of important in patients in whom other sites involved with tumor were not accessible.

Iliac Crest Needle Biopsy as a Method for Determining Estrogen Receptors in Bone Metastases from Breast Cancer

“…Our findings thus support the results cited by Wortman et al [1979] concerning the receptor status of bone métastasés, in which positive receptors were found in 10 of 31 patients (32.2%) in a comparable quantitative analysis. It can thus be assumed that in bone métastasés approximately 30% of the cases will prove to have positive estrogen receptors.…”

“…Our study cannot conclusively answer this question in the case of bone métastasés. It should be pointed out, however, that Wortman et al [1979] in their trial achieved a positive response to oral endocrine therapy in 8 of the 10 estrogen receptor-positive cases. Since our data origi nate from a relatively small group of patients, some of whom had previously received intensive hormone treatment, interpretation of our results is difficult.…”

“…1982], In order to optimize the possible success of medical treatment, it is important to know the estrogen receptors of both the primary tumor and the metastasis, since the two often differ [Rosen et al, 1977;Klinga et al, 1982]. Although there have been many studies dealing with the presence of estrogen receptors in lymph node métas tasés [Leclerque et al, 1973;Hawkins et al, 1980;Klinga et al, 1982], few have been concerned with the question of estrogen receptors in bone métastasés up to now [Wortman et al, 1979], Our study confirms that the necessary amount of tissue for an estrogen receptor analysis can indeed be extracted by bone marrow needle biopsy. Reasonable data are to be expected when the weight of the biopsy exceeds 0.1 g. Seven of the 22 evaluable cases in our study (31.8%) showed a positive receptor content in the biopsy.…”

Immunohistologic and histochemical methods for detection of steroid binding in breast cancer: A reappraisal

“…It should be noted that estrogen binding could be detected by immunohistology in 7 melanocytic tumors (24) as well as bone marrow biopsies from patients with metastatic breast cancer (25). However, in these tissues, ER was also detected by standard biochemical analyses.…”

“…They found that PEP did not compete with estradiol in a radioimmunoassay using the antiserum employed in their IP technique. However, in several other immunohistologic studies using PEP as the binding ligand (23,25,29) PEP has long been known to possess estrogenic activity (30). The inability of PEP to bind to ER in biochemical assays is indeed a perplexing issue but is not necessarily an indicator of its ability to react in histologic tissue preparations.…”