Reassessing tumor markers in local recurrences of breast cancer: a new insight.

BACKGROUND

It is believed that a local recurrence of a primitive breast cancer has the same prognostic factor profile as its primary breast cancer tumor.

MATERIAL/METHODS: We compared the immunohistochemical expressions of the tumor suppressor protein p53, estrogen receptor (ER), c-erbB2, and E-cadherin in 57 primary invasive breast cancers and in their respective LRs. The McNemar test and the kappa index were used for statistical analysis.

RESULTS

In 30 patients (52.6%) the expression of at least one of these markers was different between the primary and locally recurrent tumors. No significant difference was observed between variations in the positive and negative expressions in the primary tumor and local recurrence in cerbB2 (kappa = 0.86), E-cadherin (kappa = 0.55), and p53 (kappa = 0.7). However, the ER presented a low kappa index (kappa = 0.26, p > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

ER expression should be reviewed in local recurrent breast cancer. This relevant change in ER expression is likely to change the current clinical practice in breast cancer evaluation and treatment.