What does ER/PR 100% mean?

Shayne

SORRY - MEANT TOPIC TO SAY WHAT DOES ER/PR 100% POSITIVE MEAN? Specifically for DCIS

I cant find a lot of info regarding what your percentage is and what it means as far as chance of recurrence  and what are your best options for treatment.  Just wondering if anyone has a better understanding or links to more detailed info.

Jelson

It is my understanding that the higher the % of estrogen-receptive cells in the tumor sample, the more likely it is that the cancer will respond to hormone therapy. Hormone therapy starves the cancer of the estrogen it needs to grow. 100% +?? the cancer really really needs/wants estrogen, so I would speculate that the hormone therapy would potentially be MORE EFFECTIVE than if the tumor was 50% +.

Shayne

I know some women who were pre-menopause, who chose to have hysterectomy AND mx based on their ER/PR positive percentages........  Wondering why and is this really necessary?

bluepearl

Stops estrogen production from the ovaries. Necessary IF too much estrogen is produced. 100% ER/PR postive is a good prognostic factor and hormone treatment is your next best friend but with DCIS, one must be vigilant regarding the other breast too. Hormone treatments often prevent this. Oh, and if a woman is taking Tamoxifen and has a higher risk of getting one of the rarer side effects (uterine cancer) she might also go for a hysterectomy altho post-menopausal women are more at risk for this than pre-meno women.

Shayne

 Found this info 

http://www.cap.org/apps/cap.portal?_nfpb=true&cntvwrPtlt_actionOverride=/portlets/contentViewer/show&_windowLabel=cntvwrPtlt&cntvwrPtlt{actionForm.contentReference}=newspath/0709/prognostic_and_predictive_factors_in_breast_cancer.html&_state=maximized&_pageLabel=cntvwr  

All cases of invasive breast carcinoma are evaluated for ER/PR status using immunohistochemistry, which has both predictive and prognostic value. The presence of hormone receptors is a powerful predictive factor for the likelihood of benefit from adjuvant hormonal therapy including aromatase inhibitors (e.g., anastrozole, letrozole) and tamoxifen, an oral selective estrogen receptor modulator.^13-15 As a prognostic factor, ER and/or PR positivity is associated with reduced mortality compared to women with ER and/or PR negative disease.¹⁶ However, the percentage of immunohistochemically positive tumor cells used to classify a tumor as ER or PR positive varies among institutions. Studies support that carcinomas with >1% ER positive cells have better survival rates compared to carcinomas that are completely devoid of ER.^17,18

Anonymous

What "ER/PR 100%" means is that all (100 percent) of the cells that were analyzed express both the estrogen receptor and the progesterone receptor.  This is generally viewed as a good thing, whether you have DCIS or any kind of BC.  High expression of the estrogen receptor on breast cancer cells is used to clinical advantage, because you can take tamoxifen (a compound that blocks estrogen from acting on the estrogen receptor) or an aromatase inhibitor (a compound that blocks your body's synthesis of estrogen) to prevent estrogen from stimulating the growth of your ER+/PR+ (positive) tumor cells.