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. 2020 Oct;123(8):1223-1227.
doi: 10.1038/s41416-020-1009-1. Epub 2020 Jul 27.

The significance of highlighting the oestrogen receptor low category in breast cancer

Ivan K Poon  1 , Julia Y Tsang  1 , Joshua Li  1 , Siu-Ki Chan  2 , Ka-Ho Shea  3 , Gary M Tse  4
Affiliations

The significance of highlighting the oestrogen receptor low category in breast cancer

Ivan K Poon et al. Br J Cancer. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

The latest ASCO/CAP guideline has recommended to report oestrogen receptor (ER) low cases (ERlo; 1-10%) as "ER low positive category", prompting us to compare the clinicopathologic features, biomarkers, survival and treatment of the ERlo cases with other subgroups (ER negative (ERneg) and ER high (ERhi)). ERlo cases revealed more similar clinicopathologic and biomarker profiles (including younger age, larger tumour, high proliferation, HER2 and basal markers expression) to ERneg than ERhi cancers. The ERlo cases receiving hormonal therapy showed a similarly poor outcome as ERneg cancers. However, majority of ERlo cases were downstaged to stage I in the 8th AJCC pathological prognostic staging, highlighting a risk of potential under treatment. Overall, our data highlighted the differences of ERlo from other ERpos cases and their management should be considered separately.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared no competing interests.

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