Intratumor Heterogeneity of the Estrogen Receptor and the Long-term Risk of Fatal Breast Cancer.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Breast cancer patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive disease have a continuous long-term risk for fatal breast cancer, but the biological factors influencing this risk are unknown. We aimed to determine whether high intratumor heterogeneity of ER predicts an increased long-term risk (25 years) of fatal breast cancer.

Methods

The STO-3 trial enrolled 1780 postmenopausal lymph node-negative breast cancer patients randomly assigned to receive adjuvant tamoxifen vs not. The fraction of cancer cells for each ER intensity level was scored by breast cancer pathologists, and intratumor heterogeneity of ER was calculated using Rao's quadratic entropy and categorized into high and low heterogeneity using a predefined cutoff at the second tertile (67%). Long-term brea

SUBMITTER: Lindstrom LS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6037086 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature