A Study to Evaluate the Effect of Neo-adjuvant Chemotherapy on Hormonal and Her-2 Receptor Status in Carcinoma Breast

Background: The advances in diagnosis and treatment, in the management of breast cancer have led to excellent cure rates for tumors detected in early stage. Even patients with stage III disease have 5 years survival rates in the range of 50-70%. The search for predictive and prognostic factors in breast cancer represents a major challenge. It is important to distinguish prognostic factors from predictive factors. Aim: The aim of the surgery was to compare the immunohistochemical expression of estrogen, progesterone and Her-2 receptor status in breast cancer before and after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. Materials and methods: In this study, the total of 50 cases of locally advanced breast cancers was included. Cases of carcinoma breast requiring preoperative chemotherapy from January 2015 to January 2017 were recruited in to the study after informed consent. Results: In this study, the total of 50 cases of locally advanced breast cancers was included. Among them most of the cases belonged to the age group of 40 to 60. The extremes of ages (<30 and >60) comprised of only 14 % of the cases. In total of 50 cases 32 patients were pre-menopausal which was accounting for 64% of cases, and remaining patients were post-menopausal. Out of 20 cases of triple negative in this study complete response was seen in 6 cases accounting for about 30%. In our study there were a total of 24 changes in the receptor status post chemotherapy altogether out of which 11 changes were seen in Her2neu group. Changes in the ER and PR group accounted for 8 and 5 cases respectively. Out of 14 cases of ER positive before chemotherapy, conversion was seen in 8 cases accounting for change in ER status of 57%. Similarly 5 changes were seen in PR receptor expression accounting for 62% of change. All the changes found were loss of expression of receptor after NACT means receptor positive cases became receptor negative. Conclusion: Breast cancer subtypes are associat¬ed with the response to NACT. The response rates for the HE and TN subtypes were significantly higher than for the luminal subtypes. So it is mandatory for a patient with breast cancer who is scheduled for NACT should be assessed for the subtype of breast cancer before NACT, by using IHC, for planning treatment. This study also revealed that change in receptor status did occur after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy.