The relationship between c-erbB-2 expression, S-phase fraction and prognosis in breast cancer

Abstract

SummaryThe relationship between c-erbB-2 gene expression (assessed immunohistochemically), S-phase fraction (SPF) and prognosis has been analysed in 172 women with primary breast cancer. c-erbB-2 staining was independent of age, tumour size, number of nodes involved, tumour grade and DNA ploidy, but was more common in oestrogen receptor (ER) negative tumours (P = 0.02) and progesterone receptor (PgR) negative tumours (P = 0.03). A weak correlation between c-erbB-2 staining and SPF was observed (r = 0.18). Amongst women with node negative disease, SPF was significantly related to relapse free survival (RFS, P = 0.04) while c-erbB-2 staining was not (P = 0.2). In contrast, both SPF (P = 0.002) and c-erbB-2 staining (P = 0.016) provided significant prognostic information on RFS for women with node positive disease. Multivariate analysis showed that c-erbB-2 staining and SPF gave independent information on RFS for women with node positive disease.

Prognostic Association of C-Erbb-2 Oncogene Amplification and Protein Overexpression in Human Breast Cancer Using Archival Tissues a Comparative Study

“…Ovet-expression of c-erbB-2 protein, on the other hand, was strongly correlated with DFS and S in our patients. Although some earlier studies have failed to show an association between prognosis and overexpression of the c-erbB-2 protein detected by IHC (14,15,20), there is a gencral agreement among more recently published reports that overexpression of the c-erbB-2 gene product is related to poor survival in breast cancer (10)(11)(12)(13)(33)(34)(35)(36). Our results are consistent with this emerging consensus.…”

c-erbB-2 oncogene as a prognostic marker in breast cancer

“…Three of these papers are particularly notable: two because they are amongst the largest systematically collected series in the literature reporting data on 497 and 462 patients respectively (Lovekin et al, 1991;Winstanley et al, 1991); the third paper (Gullick et al, 1991) is notable because it reports the results of a form of metaanalysis which combines the results of three relatively small previously published studies (Gusterson et al, 1988;Barnes et al, 1988;Wright et al, 1989a) to produce a much more statistically robust conclusion than could be derived from any one of the studies alone. The fourth papers reports the results of a moderately sized study (172 patients) and is interesting because in addition to reporting the association between c-erbB-2 expression and conventional prognostic factors it also examines the association of its expression with S-phase fraction as a marker of tumour proliferation as measured by DNA flow cytometry (O'Reilly et al, 1991).…”

Prostatic carcinoma: a multivariate analysis of prognostic factors

“…Immunohistochemical demonstration of neuroendocrine features (di Sant'Agnese & de Mesy Jensen, 1987;Cohen et al, 1991), c-erbB-2 protein (Gullick et al, 1991;Reilly et al, 1991;Hale et al, 1992), p53 protein (Porter et al, 1992), prostate acid phosphatase (PAP) (Sakai et al, 1991), prostate-specific antigen (PSA) (Hammond et al, 1989;Bazinet et al, 1992) and vimentin (Leong et al, 1988) has been related to tumour prognosis. However, at present there is no general agreement concerning the best combination of prognostic factors.…”