Hydrophilic macromolecules of steroid derivatives for the detection of cancer cell receptors.

Based on a study of 118 breast cancers, the majority of human mammary carcinomas were found to be composed of largely estrogen receptor-negative cancer cells. Only in about 20% of the tumors do the estrogen receptor-positive cancer cells exceed or equal the receptor-negative ones in number in an invariably heterogeneous cancer cell population. The number of progesterone receptor-positive cancer cells appears to be even less than that of the estrogen receptor-positive ones in any given tumor. Very often all three sex-steroid receptors can be demonstrated in the same cancer cells. These results indicate that this histochemical approach may provide an efficient, inexpensive, and potentially more accurate method for the assessment of all sex-steroid receptors in human breast cancer.