@article{41aeed44d86a45b4b9a49ddeda9ea8f0,
title = "Oestrogen-receptor status and endocrine therapy of breast cancer: Response rates and status stability",
abstract = "The concentration of cellular oestrogen receptor (RE) was measured in both the soluble and nuclear-pellet fractions of biopsies from 1, 000 breast cancers. Data suggest that functional steroid RE is always in equilibrium between the soluble and nuclear fractions. However, biopsies from only one-third of patients contained detectable amounts of high-affinity RE in both fractions. Thirty patients out of 42 (71%) whose biopsies contained RE in both fractions, showed objective remission after receiving some form of hormonal manipulation as sole treatment. Response rates in the other categories ranged from 9% for those whose biopsies contained no detectable RE to 24% for those who displayed soluble RE alone. The presence of RE in both fractions of primary disease, whereas RE-negativity was maintained during progression from primary to secondary disease. Other aspects of RE status in relation to stage of disease are analysed.",
author = "Leake, {R. E.} and L. Laing and Calman, {K. C.} and MacBeth, {F. R.} and D. Crawford and Smith, {D. C.}",
note = "Funding Information: sidered. These patients had received no adjuvant therapy, so the loss of RE must have resulted during the natural progression of the disease. Further studies in progress may clarify this situation. It was more encouraging to find that RE status in only 1 patient out of 17 reverted from RE-primary to fully RE+. Patients whose receptors fell in the abnormal categories (+/0 or 0/ +) were found to show a high level of variation between primary and secondary disease. However, there were no cases of change to RE+ status. Hence patients whose primaries are either RE- or abnormal have very little chance of subsequently respond- ing to hormonal manipulation. The follow-up data in Table VII show that patients whose biopsies of secondary disease contain fully functional RE have a much better chance of objective response to human manipulation than do those with either no RE or RE in one fraction only. The criteria of clinical response used in this paper are quite severe (British Breast Group, 1974) similar to those pro-posed by the UICC (Hayward et al., 1977). Stoll (1977) proposed shorter periods of sustained response. Adoption of less stringent criteria will increase the response rate in any series. However, no biological index is ever likely to identify potential responders with complete accuracy, since so many variables are involved. Alterna-tive indices of hormonal-dependence have been tried, and perhaps the most success-ful is measurement of soluble progesterone receptor, a product of oestrogen action in normal target tissue. Recent studies by Barnes et al. (1979), Thorsen & Stoa (1979) and in our own laboratory suggest that although the presence of RP is not always associated with an improved clinical response, it is usually associated with the presence of fully functional RE and so yields a similar success rate in the identification of responders to hormone therapy. We are extremely grateful to the Cancer Research Campaign whose financial assistance has been essen- tial to this study. We should also like to thank Professor R. M. S. Smellie for his provision of facilities and also for his helpful comments and",
year = "1981",
month = jan,
doi = "10.1038/bjc.1981.8",
language = "English",
volume = "43",
pages = "59--66",
journal = "British Journal of Cancer",
issn = "0007-0920",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
number = "1",
}