Purpose: To investigate the association between hormone receptors and HER-2/neu in different age groups of women with breast cancers.
Methods: A total of 1036 women with breast cancers were recruited. All the patients were divided into nine groups. The expression of hormone receptors and HER-2/neu was studied by IHC, while FISH test was used to determine HER-2/neu status in cases scored IHC 2+. The association between hormone receptors and HER-2/neu in different age groups was evaluated using the χ(2) test. Multivariate analysis was used to find out the independent factors predicting HER-2/neu amplification. Significant findings: The expression of ER and PR was inversely correlated with HER-2/neu status in women aged >40 years. By multivariate analysis, as far as the overall groups were concerned, PR, lymph node status and tumor grade were independently associated with HER-2/neu; Considering the younger age group (≤ 40), the only predictor for HER-2/neu was the tumor grade; Considering the older age group (>40), tumor grade, PR status, tumor size and lymph node status were associated with HER-2/neu overexpression.
Conclusions: Our data suggest that the association between ER, PR and HER-2/neu is age-related. The negative relationship is only applied for women aged >40 years.
Keywords: ER; HER-2/neu; PR; breast cancer.