Summary

Several factors have been identified in breast carcinoma which affect the biologic behavior, therapy and the prognosis of the tumor. Among these, c-erbB-2 (HER-2/neu) oncogene encodes a transmembrane tyrosine kinase receptor with extensive homology to the Epidermal Growth Factor receptor. In the literature, studies regarding the prognostic role of c-erbB-2 oncoprotein overexpression and gene amplification with and without other parameters are controversial. In this study, paraffin sections from 60 female breast samples were analyzed. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect estrogen receptor status and c-erbB- 2 protein expression. We compared the prognostic impact of c-erbB-2 overexpression with conventional prognostic factors (age, histologic type and size of the tumor, grade, lymphatic invasion, lymph node involvement and estrogen receptor status). Our results showed that c-erbB-2 expression in breast carcinoma is significantly related to the number of metastatic lymph nodes, poor histologic grade and lymphatic invasion. Age, histologic type, tumor size and estrogen receptor status did not correlate with c-erbB-2 status in our study. This study confirmed the importance of c-erbB-2 overexpression as a single and combined prognostic parameter together with conventional factors. Still further studies need to show the prognostic dependency of c-erbB-2 to the other prognostic parameters.