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RESEARCH PRODUCT
Letter to the Editor regarding the paper by Aurilio et al., A meta-analysis of oestrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 discordance between primary breast cancer and metastases
Antonio IeniValeria BarresiGiuseppe Giuffre'Caltabiano . R.Cascone . A.. . RSordo DelCabibi . D.Zeppa . P.Lanzafame . S.Sidoni . A.Franco . V.Giovanni Tuccarisubject
OncologyCancer Researchmedicine.medical_specialtyPathologyLetter to the editorBreast NeoplasmsSettore MED/08 - Anatomia PatologicaErbB-2breast cancer metastases oestrogen receptor human epidermal growth factor receptor 2Internal medicineProgesterone receptorReceptorsmedicineHumansOestrogen receptorskin and connective tissue diseasesReceptorProgesteronebusiness.industryCancermedicine.diseaseEstrogenRegimenOncologyLOCALLY RECURRENT HORMONE-RECEPTOR HER2 STATUS IMPACTMeta-analysisBreast Neoplasms; Female; Humans; Receptor ErbB-2; Receptors Estrogen; Receptors ProgesteroneImmunohistochemistryFemalebusinessReceptordescription
Sir,We have read with great interest the article in press ofAurilio et al., A meta-analysis of oestrogen receptor, pro-gesterone receptor and human epidermal growth factorreceptor 2 discordance between primary breast cancerand metastases (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejca.2003.10.004), which will appear in Eur J Cancer. In the paper,the Authors have performed a meta-analysis of the stud-ies published in the literature concerning the discor-dance rate in oestrogen receptor (ER), progesteronereceptor (PgR) and HER2 status between primarytumour and corresponding relapse. It is well known thata considerable controversy concerns the issue of hor-mone receptors (HRs) expression as well as HER2 sta-tus between primary breast carcinomas (BC) andmetastatic sites from the same patient, as elsewherereported in literature [1–5]. In particular, the discor-dance between primary BC and metastases from nega-tive to positive and vice versa potentially affects thetreatment regimen [5]; therefore, it has been suggestedthat neoplastic tissue of metastatic lesions should be sys-tematically re-biopsied to optimally re-assess HR as wellas HER2 [1,2,4–8].In their meta-analysis, focusing on HER2 status,Aurilio et al. documented that the pooled discordanceproportion with respect to the primary breast tumourwas 10% for distant metastases and 6% for loco-regionalrelapses. Moreover, a different pooled discordant pro-portion was found on the basis of the different utilisedtechnique, since it was 10% in studies using immunohis-tochemistry (IHC) and fluorescence in situ hybridisation(FISH), but 5% in studies using IHC only; therefore,they conclude the observed discrepancy was not merelydue to technicality. Nevertheless, whether these changesin HER2 status may be attributed to laboratory repro-ducibility in techniques or to other pre-analytical fac-
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-03-01 |