Evaluation of expression of Her-2/neu in breast carcinoma - An immunohistochemistry study

Background: Assessment of Her-2/neu is important in targeted therapies for breast cancer notably including Herceptin/Trastuzumab. Thus, the present study was undertaken to find expression of Her-2/neu in breast carcinoma and to correlate expression of this tumor markers with clinical parameters. Materials and methods: The present retrospective study was carried out on 50 cases of breast cancer received as lumpectomy or mastectomy specimens. All the cases were subjected to immunohistochemistry for Her-2/neu expression. Only membrane staining of tumor cells was considered as positive. For scoring of Her-2/neu only staining intensity was taken into account. Results: Her-2/neu positivity was seen in 3 cases comprising 6% of the total cases. Percentage of positive cells varies from 30 to 53% with moderate intensity. 66.7% Her-2/neu positive cases was of grade II and (33.3%) was of grade I. All Her-2/neu positive cases showed Lymph node involvement. A definite correlation was observed between Her-2/neu positivity and tumor size. All cases showed size varying from 2 to 5 cm. Conclusion: The present study concluded that Her-2/neu positivity is associated with aggressive nature of breast carcinoma. Hence, it is of utmost importance to correctly identify the subset of patients with positive cases so that they can avail benefit from this novel mode of therapy targeted therapy against the Her-2 gene.