scholarly journals Expression of ER-α36, a Novel Variant of Estrogen Receptor α, and Resistance to Tamoxifen Treatment in Breast Cancer

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (21) ◽  
pp. 3423-3429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Shi ◽  
Bin Dong ◽  
Zhongwu Li ◽  
Yunwei Lu ◽  
Tao Ouyang ◽  
...  

Purpose Recently, a 36-kDa variant of estrogen receptor α (ER-α66), ER-α36, has been identified and cloned. ER-α36 predominantly localizes on the plasma membrane and in the cytoplasm and mediates a membrane-initiated “nongenomic” signaling pathway. Here, we investigate the association between ER-α36 expression and tamoxifen resistance in patients with breast cancer. Patients and Methods ER-α36 protein expression in tumors from 896 women (two independent cohorts, 1 and 2) with operable primary breast cancer was assessed using an immunohistochemistry assay. Results In the first cohort of 710 consecutive patients, overexpression of ER-α36 was associated with poorer disease-free survival (DFS) and disease-specific survival (DSS) in patients with ER-α66–positive tumors who received tamoxifen treatment (chemotherapy plus tamoxifen or tamoxifen alone, n = 307). In contrast, ER-α36 was not associated with survival in patients with ER-α66–positive tumors who did not receive tamoxifen (chemotherapy alone, n = 129) and in patients with ER-α66–negative tumors whether they received tamoxifen (n = 73) or not (n = 149). In the second cohort of 186 patients who only received tamoxifen as adjuvant therapy, overexpression of ER-α36 was significantly associated with poorer DFS and DSS in 156 ER-α66–positive patients from this cohort, and ER-α36 remained an independent unfavorable factor for both DFS and DSS in these 156 patients by a multivariate analysis (DFS: hazard ratio [HR] = 5.47; 95% CI, 1.81 to 16.51; P =. 003; DSS: HR = 13.97; 95% CI, 1.58 to 123.53; P = .018). Conclusion Women with ER-α66–positive tumors that also express high levels of ER-α36 are less likely to benefit from tamoxifen treatment.

2003 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 976-983 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Craig Henderson ◽  
Donald A. Berry ◽  
George D. Demetri ◽  
Constance T. Cirrincione ◽  
Lori J. Goldstein ◽  
...  

Purpose: This study was designed to determine whether increasing the dose of doxorubicin in or adding paclitaxel to a standard adjuvant chemotherapy regimen for breast cancer patients would prolong time to recurrence and survival. Patients and Methods: After surgical treatment, 3,121 women with operable breast cancer and involved lymph nodes were randomly assigned to receive a combination of cyclophosphamide (C), 600 mg/m2, with one of three doses of doxorubicin (A), 60, 75, or 90 mg/m2, for four cycles followed by either no further therapy or four cycles of paclitaxel at 175 mg/m2. Tamoxifen was given to 94% of patients with hormone receptor–positive tumors. Results: There was no evidence of a doxorubicin dose effect. At 5 years, disease-free survival was 69%, 66%, and 67% for patients randomly assigned to 60, 75, and 90 mg/m2, respectively. The hazard reductions from adding paclitaxel to CA were 17% for recurrence (adjusted Wald χ2 P = .0023; unadjusted Wilcoxon P = .0011) and 18% for death (adjusted P = .0064; unadjusted P = .0098). At 5 years, the disease-free survival (± SE) was 65% (± 1) and 70% (± 1), and overall survival was 77% (± 1) and 80% (± 1) after CA alone or CA plus paclitaxel, respectively. The effects of adding paclitaxel were not significantly different in subsets defined by the protocol, but in an unplanned subset analysis, the hazard ratio of CA plus paclitaxel versus CA alone was 0.72 (95% confidence interval, 0.59 to 0.86) for those with estrogen receptor–negative tumors and only 0.91 (95% confidence interval, 0.78 to 1.07) for patients with estrogen receptor–positive tumors, almost all of whom received adjuvant tamoxifen. The additional toxicity from adding four cycles of paclitaxel was generally modest. Conclusion: The addition of four cycles of paclitaxel after the completion of a standard course of CA improves the disease-free and overall survival of patients with early breast cancer.


2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (28) ◽  
pp. 4679-4683 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lajos Pusztai ◽  
Kristine Broglio ◽  
Fabrice Andre ◽  
W. Fraser Symmans ◽  
Kenneth R. Hess ◽  
...  

Purpose The majority of estrogen receptor (ER)–positive cancers are sensitive to endocrine therapy and may not derive much further benefit from chemotherapy, but a subset are potentially chemotherapy sensitive. Molecular diagnostic tests allow the identification of these various subsets with some accuracy. The goal of the current analysis was to examine how the proportion of cases in the various risk (recurrence score [RS]) categories of a commercially available multigene assay influences the power of randomized trials to show benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy. Methods We modeled 10-year disease-free survival (DFS) for hypothetical, two-arm clinical trials that randomly assigned patients with ER-positive breast cancer to endocrine therapy alone or endocrine therapy plus chemotherapy. We varied the proportion of patients in low, intermediate, and high RS categories and used DFS estimates for each risk group based on results from the Southwest Oncology Group 8814 study. Results The probability of observing significant improvement in DFS as a result of chemotherapy decreases as the proportion of patients in the low RS category increases. For example, if a trial is designed with 80% power and the actual proportion of low RS patients accrued to the study increases from 40% to 60%, the power drops to 63%. Conclusion Variable accrual of low RS patients into different randomized adjuvant chemotherapy trials may partly explain contradictory results in the literature. Studies can be underpowered to detect improvement with chemotherapy as a result of inclusion of too many patients with low RS. Future adjuvant studies for ER-positive breast cancer will need to consider stratifying patients by molecular subtype.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmin Korzets ◽  
Orly Yariv ◽  
Raz Mutai ◽  
Assaf Moore ◽  
Tzippy Shochat ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Menstrual and parity history might impact the risk for breast cancer. Data on the impact of these factors on other tumor characteristics are limited. Methods A single center retrospective cohort study comprising all women with estrogen receptor (ER) positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) negative, early breast cancer whose tumors were sent to OncotypeDX analysis. The prespecified subgroups were investigated: age of menarche (< 12 vs. ≥ 12 years), number of deliveries (0 vs. ≥ 1 childbirth and ≥ 5 childbirth vs. other), age of first delivery (≥ 30 years vs. younger age) and postmenopausal compared to premenopausal. The impact of age of menopause was also assessed categorically, using early (< 45 years) and late age of menopause (> 55 years). Differences in tumor characteristics were evaluated using T-test or Mann Whitney for continuous variables or Fisher’s exact test for categorical variables. Outcomes were assessed by Kaplan–Meier survival analysis, with the log-rank test. Results A total of 620 women were included. After median follow-up of 10.4 years, early menopause was associated with significantly worse disease-free survival (HR = 2.26, p = 0.004) and overall-survival (HR = 2.60, p = 0.004), and multiparity was associated with significant worse disease-free survival (HR = 2.16, p = 0.026). These differences remain significant in multivariate analyses. Post-menopausal women were more likely to have stronger ER intensity (p = 0.002) but progesterone receptor (PR) positivity was less frequent (p = 0.009(. Early age of menarche was associated with PR positivity (p = 0.039). No other associations were found between the evaluated subgroups and tumor characteristics. Conclusions The impact of endogenous estrogen exposure had little effect on breast cancer characteristics of early stage, luminal disease. Early menopause and multiparity were associated with worse outcome.


2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 11015-11015
Author(s):  
A. Rody ◽  
T. Karn ◽  
C. Solbach ◽  
E. Ruckhaeberle ◽  
L. Hanker ◽  
...  

11015 Background: In vitro and in vivo data demonstrate that the expression of estrogen receptor (ER) in breast cancer is mainly associated with low proliferation. Gene expression profiling has recently been used to identify a group of high proliferating estrogen receptor positive breast cancers (the luminal B subtype), which are associated with a prognosis that is even worse than that of high proliferating estrogen receptor negative tumors. The analysis of those tumors might provide valuable information about breast cancer biology and could be helpful for adjuvant or neoadjuvant treatment decisions.Methods and Results: We analyzed microarray data from breast cancer specimens to gain insight into genes which play a role in estrogen receptor signalling. Genes were identified showing strong expression in high proliferating ER-positive tumors but no expression in either Ki67-/ER+ or Ki67+/ER- samples. Among these genes the Na+/H+ exchanger regulatory factor NHERF1 was found. We assessed the clinical relevance of NHERF1 transcript levels using a total of 2469 breast cancers. Analysis indicates that enhanced NHERF1 expression is associated with metastatic progression and poor prognosis of breast cancer patients. We found no correlation between NHERF1 and the nodal status as well as age, but positive correlations for tumor size (P<0.001), grade (P<0.001) and erbb2 (P=0.033). Weak NHERF1 expression correlated with longer disease free survival (DFS) in grade 1 and 2 tumors, but not in grade 3 breast cancers. Since NHERF1 expression is strongly linked to the presence of ER, the predictive value for endocrine treatment was analyzed. For samples with weak or none NHERF1 expression a treatment benefit was observed (P=0.007). While untreated patients display a 10 yr DFS rate of 67.2 ± 3.8%, endocrine treatment resulted in 80.1 ± 4.0%. In contrast no differences in disease free survival were found for corresponding NHERF1 expressing breast cancers. Conclusions: Our data indicate that expression of NHERF1 defines a state of differentiation, where breast cancer cells are refractory to endocrine treatment. No significant financial relationships to disclose.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document