Breast Cancer: Basic and Clinical Research

Background: Increasing evidence shows the importance of young age, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) status, and HER-2 expression in patients with breast cancers.

Patients and methods: We organized an analytic cross-sectional study of 105 women diagnosed with breast cancer who have been operated on between 2008 to 2010. We evaluated age, size, hormone receptor status, HER-2 and P53 expression as possible indicator of lymph node involvement.

Results: There is a direct correlation between positive progesterone receptor status and being younger than 40 (P < 0.05). Also, compared with older women, young women had tumors that were more likely to be large in size and have higher stages (P < 0.05). Furthermore patients with negative progesterone receptor status were more likely to have HER-2 overexpression (P < 0.05). The differences in propensity to lymph node metastasis between hormone receptor statuses were not statically significant.

Conclusions: Although negative progesterone receptor tumors were more likely to have HER-2 overexpression, it is possible that higher stage and larger size breast cancer in younger women is related to positive progesterone receptor status.