Usefulness of liquid-based cytology in hormone receptor analysis of breast cancer specimens

Abstract

Immunohistochemical (IHC) analysis of the hormone receptor (HR) in breast cancer cytology is an important issue nowadays. Several studies have shown discrepancy in the HR status between the primary tumor and metastases. Cytology can be used for patients with metastatic disease. Although cytological assessment of HR is an excellent method, it has not been routinely used because of the difficulty in consistently preparing multiple good quality slides. Liquid-based cytology (LBC) preparation is considered as the key to resolving the aforementioned problem; however, few studies have reported the HR assessment in breast cancer using LBC. Therefore, the HR status of LBC slides from 82 breast cancers was compared with that of the corresponding surgical specimens. The HR assay in both the LBC slides and surgical specimens was conducted by IHC using an autostainer. For the IHC staining, the protocol recommended by the manufacturer for paraffin-embedded sections was used for both the cytology and histology specimens. The HR results of the cytology agreed with those of the histology in 80 of the 82 cases (accuracy rate, 98%) for estrogen receptor, and in 78 of the 82 cases (accuracy rate, 95%) for progesterone receptor. The overall accuracy of the HR status on the cytology and the histology was 99% in 81 of the 82 cases. In conclusion, in HR analysis of breast cancers, LBC followed by IHC using an autostainer was useful for the standard processing of cytological specimens and showed a good correlation with the results of analysis on the histology specimens.

Low concordance of biomarkers in histopathological and cytological material from breast cancer

“…The introduction of techniques of liquid‐ and paraffin‐based cytology has provided new and promising opportunities for accurate biomarker assessments by ICC, and good concordance with IHC . A recent study in a similar Swedish setting by Domanski et al .…”

Liquid-based versus conventional cytology in solid pediatric neoplasm: Comparison of their diagnostic and morphological spectra

“…[12] LBC is at present the standard protocol for smear preparation in cervical cytology; however, by and large it is not a preferred method in nongynecological fine-needle aspirates. Reports in the literature are available, which suggest a complementary role of LBC in conventional cytology (CC) in adult tumors[123456789101112131415161718192021] but data in pediatric solid neoplasms are lacking. Thus, with an aim analyze both smear preparatory techniques in fine-needle aspiration (FNA) samples from solid pediatric neoplasms in terms of adequacy and efficacy with objectives to study the changes in the background and morphology of tumor cells in LBC smears, the present study was undertaken.…”

Is Liquid-Based Cytology the Magic Bullet for Performing Molecular Techniques?

“…The equivocal cases have been confirmed by FISH. A similar publication by Nishimura et al [19] has shown the concordance of LBC and histology in the evaluation of hormone receptors. …”