Abstract

ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND:
The prognostic biomarkers in a disease provide information regarding outcome irrespective of therapy .Her-2/neu oncogene expression is an important prognostic and predictive marker for breast cancer .Her-2 /neu expression can be determined by immunohistochemistry ,which became a routine investigation to predict the response to tamoxifen therapy. There is evidence that over-expression of Her-2 /neu is involved in breast cancer progression and there is suggestion that Her-2/neu over-expression plays a role in the early stages of breast tumorigenesis .
OBJECTIVE:
To evaluate Her-2/neu over-expression in breast carcinomas in the studied sample and to assess its immunhistochemicalscore status in term of accepted conventional clinicopathological parameters . PATIENTS AND METHODS:
This is a descriptive study which was carried out from 2007-2012 on 64 breast carcinoma specimens. Paraffin embedded tissue of patients underwent modified radical mastectomy with axillary clearance were processed for Her-2/neu assessment from almost all breast patients in the province . Then the evaluation of the staining and assigning a score were performed which ranged from 0 -3 .The tumor grade was asses using modified Bloom-Richardson grading system .Data on the patients age , the size of the tumor and lymph node status were obtained .
Statistical analysis were produced by the use of Chi square test and at the level of significant alpha < 0.05 to compare the IHC results for HER-2 expression with the prognostic clinicopathological parameters .
RESULTS :
HER-2 over expression was seen in 23.5% (15/64) and the lymph nodes involvement status had a significant association with the immunhistochemical score for HER/2 oncogene and no siginificant association seen between HER-2 overexpression and other clinicopathological parameters including age , tumor size and tumor grade.
CONCLUSION :
The study reveals that the prevalence of HER-2 overexpression in breast cancers is less in our study compared with the western world and demonstrates association of the immunhistochemical score of HER-2 /neu with some of the well-established pathological parameters of breast carcinoma , specially lymph node involvement. It justifies the use of the immunhistochemical score in assessing breast carcinoma and modified its treatment