Rabbit Anti-Human PGR Monoclonal Antibody, clone CQ7192

Oncotype Dx (ODx) recurrence score (RS) is used in early breast cancer to guide the use of adjuvant therapy. In addition to RS the test produces results of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) of Estrogen receptors (ER), Progesterone receptors (PgR) and Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2-neu). Our goal was to determine the correlation between immunohistochemistry (IHC) and RT-PCR testing of ER, PgR and HER2-neu and to correlate the results of ODx RS with tumors' grade, age and PgR status. 113 patients with ER+, HER2-neu-breast cancers that underwent ODx testing were analyzed for receptors correlation and concordance rates by the 2 methods. A total of 104 patients had ER+/PgR+ tumors and 9 patients had ER+/PgR-tumors by IHC, the average RS were 17.5 +/- 9.1 and 31.2 +/- 8.7 (P < 0.001) respectively. The Spearman correlation coefficient between IHC and ODx results were 0.5 (95% CI 0.34-0.62) for ER and 0.78 (95% CI 0.7-0.84) for PgR. The concordance rate between IHC and ODx was 98.2% for ER, 89.4%.for PgR and 99.1% for HER2-neu. Most of the discordant cases (9 out of 13) were low positive (1-10%) by IHC and negative by RT-PCR. In addition higher tumor grade was associated with a higher ODx RS. Our data show that the IHC results were highly concordant with RT-PCR for ER, PgR and Her2-neu. In addition low positive (1-10%) ER/PgR might indicate a real negative status. Our study shows that ER+/PgRbreast cancers are associated with a significantly higher ODx RS.

Purpose Androgen Receptor (AR) positivity is often displayed in breast cancer and especially in Male Breast Cancer (MBC), where it appears to be a heterogeneous feature, with its expression ranging between 38 and 81% of cases. Given the fact that circulating androgens represent the most important sex hormones in males and that breast carcinogenesis is characteristically subjected to hormonal mechanisms, our purpose was to investigate the clinicopathological significance of AR in MBC assessing if its expression could be associated with parameters of tumor aggressiveness. Methods Clinical and pathological data were retrospectively reviewed for male patients with a diagnosis of invasive breast cancer. AR status was detected by immunohistochemistry on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tumoral tissue sections. Correlations between AR expression and histopathological features were assessed using univariate and multiple comparisons where appropriate, assuming P values < 0.05 as statistically significant. Results The study included 44 consecutive male patients. AR expression ranged between 10 and 98% and the majority of cases presented a moderate to high expression of this receptor. Adopting a 20% PgR cut-off, statistical analyses highlighted a different behavior of AR: in ER+/PgR(high) group, it positively correlated with the other steroid receptors pointing out the importance of hormonal cross-talk: in ER+/PgR(low) group, AR status inversely correlated with histological grade and lymph node status. Conclusion Hormonal factors reveal to play a crucial role in MBC carcinogenesis and progression. Intriguingly, in ER+/PgR(low) tumors AR expression significantly correlates with lymph node status, hinting at a favorable biological role of AR in this tumor subgroup.