Discordance of the estrogen receptor and HER-2/neu in breast cancer from primary lesion to first and second metastatic site

Figures & data

Table 1 Demographics of patients studied

Feature
Patients studied, n	103
Age, years	48 (26–80)*
Time until first metastases, days	1225 (7–8115)*
Time between first and second metastases, days	581 (23–4769)*
Tumor stage at diagnosis
One	27
Two	31
Three	5

Note:

* Median (range).

Table 2 Discordance between paired primary lesion and first and second metastases

Primary/first/second metastases	ER	PR	HER-2
Neg/neg/neg	23	33	37
Neg/neg/pos	4	3	3
Neg/pos/neg	1	3	2
Neg/pos/pos	2	6	2
Pos/neg/neg	7	12	3
Pos/neg/pos	6	8	1
Pos/pos/neg	8	3	0
Pos/pos/pos	50	18	8
Total cases studied	101	86	56
Discordance primary and first	15.8%	33.7%	14.3%
Discordance first vs second	18.8%	19.8%	10.7%
Discordance primary second	20.8%	30.2%	14.3%
Overall discordance	27.7%	40.7%	19.6%

Abbreviations: ER, estrogen receptor; Neg, negative; Pos, positive; PR, progesterone receptor.

Figure 1 Survival curve based on the estrogen receptor (ER) status. There was a significant difference in survival, with the best survival noted in patients with biomarkers positive at all three time points. Worse survival was witnessed for those patients with all three parameters negative, and intermediate survival for those with discordant tumors (chi-square =14.27, p=0.0008).

Figure 2 Survival curve based on the progesterone receptor (PR) status. Again there was a significant difference between the survival curves (chi-square =11.31, p=0.0035). In this case, patients with tumors negative for PR at all three time points experienced a worse survival probability, whereas survival was similar for the other two situations.

Figure 3 Demonstrates the survival curves for the three scenarios based on HER-2/neu status. In contrast to hormone receptor discordance, there was no difference in survival for the three HER-2/neu concordant or discordant groups (chi-square=4.66, p=0.972).