An immunohistological study of breast cancer--with special reference to the expression of carbohydrate antigens and estrogen receptor status.

An investigation carried out on 100 cases of primary breast cancer, both clinicopathologically and immunohistologically, revealed estrogen receptor (ER)-positive cases to be found significantly more often in early stage cancer than advanced stage cancer. On the other hand, ER negative cases were found to have a greater incidence of high-grade lymph node metastasis and were seen significantly more frequently in large tumors. Span-1, CA19-9, and SLEX antigens were detected in 33 per cent, 38 per cent, and 64 per cent of the total cases, respectively and the ratio of ER negative cases was significantly higher in each antigen positive group. Irrespective of the presence or absence of lymph node metastasis, ER negative cases were found significantly more often in antigen-positive groups than in their counterparts and tumor size tended to be greater in the antigen-positive cases. The results of this study thus indicated that the disease progression in breast cancer appears to be correlated with ER status and carbohydrate antigen expression.