[Utility of the paraffin-embedded section method on the detection of estrogen receptor from breast cancer tissues--comparison of the paraffin-embedded section method (6F11 and 1D5) with frozen section (H222) and dextran-coated charcoal (DCC) ones]

Abstract

From March 1988 to December 1990, we detected estrogen receptor (ER) from breast cancer tissues with the dextran-coated charcoal (DCC) method. From September 1990 to March 1998, we repeated the above with the frozen section method (cloneH222; DAINABOT). With the paraffin-embedded section method using two antibodies of anti-ER (clone6F11; NOVOCASTRA and clone 1D5; MBL), we examined the ER of the same 185 primary breast cancer tissues. We had already detected these tissues with the frozen section method, and we also applied the same procedure for the 43 primary breast cancer tissues which had already been detected with the DCC method. We compared these data. The positive rates of ER with DCC, H222, 6F11 and 1D5 were 49%, 53%, 53% and 52% respectively, which were within the reported range. The accuracy between H222 and 6F11 which was calculated as the percentage that were in positive and negative concordance by the two methods, was 88%. The accuracies between H222 and 1D5, between 6F11 and 1D5, between DCC and 6F11, between DCC and 1D5 were respectively 89%, 96%, 79%, and 77%. Although the accuracy between DCC and the paraffin-embedded section was not necessarily high, we obtained a higher concordance between the frozen and paraffin-embedded sections. The highest concordance existed between 6F11 and 1D5. The 30% of negative cases with DCC were positive with paraffin-embedded section. Among these methods of ER detection from breast cancer tissues, the paraffin-embedded section method seemed to be the most useful.