Amongst Women Stratified to Receive Endocrine Therapy on the Basis of Their Tumor Estrogen and Progesterone Receptor Levels, Those with Higher Tumor Progesterone Receptor Levels Had a Better Outcome Than Those with Lower Levels of Tumor Progesterone Receptor

Tai-Han Lin; Hong-Wei Gao; Guo-Shiou Liao; Jyh-Cherng Yu; Ming-Shen Dai; Jar-Yi Ho; Cheng-Ping Yu

doi:10.3390/cancers13040905

Amongst Women Stratified to Receive Endocrine Therapy on the Basis of Their Tumor Estrogen and Progesterone Receptor Levels, Those with Higher Tumor Progesterone Receptor Levels Had a Better Outcome Than Those with Lower Levels of Tumor Progesterone Receptor

Cancers (Basel). 2021 Feb 21;13(4):905. doi: 10.3390/cancers13040905.

Authors

Tai-Han Lin¹, Hong-Wei Gao¹, Guo-Shiou Liao², Jyh-Cherng Yu², Ming-Shen Dai³, Jar-Yi Ho^{1

4}, Cheng-Ping Yu^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology and Graduate Institute of Pathology and Parasitology, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, No. 161, Section 6, Minquan E. Road, Neihu District, Taipei 114, Taiwan.
² Department of Surgery, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei 114, Taiwan.
³ Department of Medicine, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei 114, Taiwan.
⁴ Graduate Institute of Life Sciences, National Defense Medical Center, No. 161, Section 6, Minquan E. Road, Neihu District, Taipei 114, Taiwan.

Abstract

Background: To realize the association between stratified expression levels of ER and PgR and long-term prognosis of breast cancer patients who received adjuvant hormone therapy, this study aimed to propose better prognostic cut-off levels for estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PgR).

Methods: Patients who received adjuvant hormone therapy after surgical intervention were selected. The ER and PgR status and their effects on breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) and disease-free survival (DFS) over 5 and 10 years were evaluated. Next, subgroups were generated based on ER and PgR expression percentage and Allred scores. Survival curves were constructed using the Kaplan-Meier method.

Results: ER and PgR expression were significantly associated with better prognosis in 5 years, whereas only PgR expression was significantly associated during the 10-year follow-up. The optimal cut-off values for better 5-year BCSS were ER > 50%; ER Allred score > 7; PgR ≥ 1%; or PgR Allred score ≥ 3; the corresponding values for DFS were ER > 40%; ER Allred score > 6; PgR > 10%; or PgR Allred score ≥ 3. In the long-term follow-up, PgR of > 50% or Allred score of > 5 carriers revealed a better prognosis of both BCSS and DFS.

Conclusion: Patients with a PgR expression > 50% or an Allred score > 5 exhibited better 10-year BCSS and DFS.

Keywords: breast cancer; estrogen receptor; hormone therapy; progesterone receptor.

Abstract

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