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Prognostic significance of estrogen receptor alpha and beta expression in human serous carcinomas of the ovary

  • Gynecologic oncology
  • Published:
Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

Ovarian cancer is a gynecologic cancer with a high mortality rate. This shows the need of effective screening methods and reliable cancer markers for ovarian cancer staging and appropriate effective cancer treatment.

Methods

Expression of estrogen receptor α and β was studied by immunhistochemical analysis of 100 ovarian cancer tissue samples.

Results

In this study on 100 serous ovarian cancer tissue samples from patients with defined clinicopathologic features, a significant association of ER-α expression with ovarian cancer grading (p = 0.004), progression-free survival (p = 0.007), and cause-specific survival (p = 0.001) was demonstrated. Expression of ER-β was found to be associated with the metastatic lymph node status (p = 0.006).

Conclusion

Immunohistochemical analysis of ER might be used as an easy, simple and highly efficient marker to identify high-risk patients and may aid in the selection of patients for a more aggressive adjuvant therapy. Furthermore, patients that show a positive ER-α immunostaining can be selected for a specific anti-hormonal therapy, as already performed for breast cancer patients.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Susanne Kunze and Christina Kuhn for their support in immunohistochemical studies. Additionally, we would also like to thank Prof. D. Hölzel—Institute of Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich and Mr. M. Schmidt of the Munich Tumour Registry for supplying the survival data.

Conflict of interest statement

None.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Campus Grosshadern, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany

    Alexander Burges & Klaus Friese

  2. First Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Campus Innenstadt, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Maistrasse 11, 80337, Munich, Germany

    Ansgar Brüning, Christine Dannenmann, Thomas Blankenstein, Udo Jeschke, Naim Shabani, Klaus Friese & Ioannis Mylonas

  3. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Klinikum Neuperlach, Munich, Germany

    Naim Shabani

Authors
  1. Alexander Burges
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  2. Ansgar Brüning
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  3. Christine Dannenmann
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  4. Thomas Blankenstein
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  5. Udo Jeschke
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  6. Naim Shabani
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  7. Klaus Friese
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  8. Ioannis Mylonas
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ioannis Mylonas.

Additional information

A. Burges and A. Brüning contributed equally.

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Burges, A., Brüning, A., Dannenmann, C. et al. Prognostic significance of estrogen receptor alpha and beta expression in human serous carcinomas of the ovary. Arch Gynecol Obstet 281, 511–517 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-009-1185-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-009-1185-y

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