[Relation of steroid receptors, tumor ploidy, and cell proliferation in various histologic types of breast cancer].

The receptor status of the tumors examined in 74 patients with breast cancer was found to correlate with its ploidy and proliferative activity as evidenced by flow cytometry and it failed to correlate with a histological tumor type and metastatic involvement of regional lymph nodes. In terms of DNA content, the receptor-positive tumors were more frequently diploid, the receptor-negative ones were aneuploid. The proliferation index (PI) for the receptor-negative tumors was significantly higher than that for the receptor-positive ones. The diploid tumors showed lower proliferative activity than the aneuploid ones. Among the aneuploid tumors, PI for infiltrative lobular cancer was significantly lower than that for infiltrative duct cancer. Early in invasion, duct carcinoma was predominantly diploid, of grade I-IIA malignancy and more infrequently metastasized into regional lymph nodes. Grade IIB-III malignant tumors were chiefly aneuploid and more frequently metastasized into regional lymph nodes.