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603
Correlation Between Prognostic Factors for
Breast Cancer in 953 Patients. Donna Lee, Froilan Espinoza,
Thomas Fears, Lee Levitt, Albert Lin, Santa Clara Valley Medical
Center/Stanford Univ Sch of Medicine, San Jose, CA; Quest
Diagnostics / Nichols Institute, San Juan Capistrano, CA; National
Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD.
Several prognostic factors for breast cancer have been
identified. However, their correlation is not well understood. We
examined the correlation between HER2 over-expression, estrogen
receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), S-phase fraction, and DNA
index. Study subjects consist of 953 consecutive female breast cases
with all 5 factors examined at Quest Diagnostics/Nichols Institute
between 7/1/99 and 9/1/99. All assays were done by
immunohistochemistry (ER, PR, and HER2- HerceptTest) and flow
cytometry (S-phase fraction and DNA index). Correlations were
assessed using Spearman rank order correlation coefficients. The
results are as follows: {table} (Note: correlation coefficients
between prognostic markers and p-values in parentheses) The data
suggest that (1) DNA index/S-phase fraction and ER/PR carry
significantly positive correlation; (2) ER/HER-2, PR/HER-2,
ER/S-phase fraction, PR/S-phase fraction, ER/DNA index, and PR/DNA
index correlate negatively, though statistically significant; (3)
the strongest correlation is found between DNA index and S phase
fraction, which is followed by ER/PR, ER/S-phase fraction,
PR/S-phase fraction, ER/DNA index, PR/HER-2, PR/DNA index, and
ER/HER-2; (4) HER-2 over-expression correlates poorly with either
S-phase fraction or DNA index.
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