Estrogen and Progesterone Receptor Testing in Breast Cancer
Key Points
Key Points
A well-performed ER/PgR assay identifies which patients could benefit from to endocrine therapy as treatment after a diagnosis of breast cancer. Additionally, hormone receptor status can be valuable more broadly for tumor classification and other factors that inform treatment.
Globally, more than 1 million women are being diagnosed annually with breast cancer and receptor testing conducted on these biopsies typically discern that approximately 8 in 10 of these women have ER positive breast cancer.
The new guidance reaffirms many of the 2010 recommendations, including that patients with breast cancers having 1–100% ER expression be considered ER positive for the purpose of endocrine therapy decisions. However, new reporting recommendations are made for cases with 1–10% ER expression to acknowledge the more limited data on endocrine responsiveness in this group and overlapping features with ER negative cancers.
The update also has a new recommendation for labs to establish a specific standard operating procedure to ensure the validity of low positive (1–10%) or negative (0 or <1%) interpretations and results. Correlation of ER staining with the histologic features (as well as attention to other standard quality control measures) is also recommended and unusual/discordant results worked up.
The utility of PgR-positive population, but testing using similar principles to ER testing is still recommended for invasive cancers.
Additionally, the updated draft now recommends ER testing for patients diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ, but PgR testing is optional.
Diagnosis
...agnosis...
...ithm for ER/PgR testingSamples with...
...esting conditions (no change)Large, (pr...
...mal tissue handling requirements (no...
Optimal internal validation procedur...
...ptimal internal QA proceduresOngoing q...
...al external proficiency assessmentThe laboratory...
...ratory accreditationOn-site inspectio...
...es should include ongoing quality control...
...f any ER result should include evaluation o...
...ould establish and follow a standard operating...
...s of internal controls should be reported for cas...
...IHC is the recommended standard test fo...
...R testing in cases of newly diagnosed DCIS (...
...le 1. Invasive Breast Cancer Histopathologic...
...tional Recommended Reporting Commen...
...ommendations for Scoring (Readout) and Int...
...re 2. Case examples to illustrate stai...
Figure legend: Examples of invasive cancers wi...
...rnal ControlsFigure legend: Examples of in...
...gure 4. External ControlsFigure lege...