Immunohistochemical study of HER-2 /neu in invasive ductal carcinoma of breast

Abstract

This study was conducted to estimate the overexpression of HER- 2\neu protein in human breast carcinoma in comparison to benign breast lesions and to show its possible correlation to the pathological parameters (histological type, grade and age). We evaluated the available tissue blocks of 50 patients with breast lesions (38 with invasive ductal carcinoma & 5 cases with fibroadenoma , 5 cases with fibrocystic disease & 2 cases with normal tissue) who had referred to Al-diwaniya Hospital between January 2007 and December 2010 All cases were female. The mean age of the patients was 55 years (range, 33 to 77 years). The tumors were grade 1, 2, and 3 in 6 (15.7%), 19 (50%), and 13 (34.3%) cases, respectively. From 38 cases of IDC , A total of 12 (31.5%) patients were positive for overexpression of HER- 2/neu oncogene and From 12 cases of non malignant cases all of them were negative for overexpression of HER- 2/neu oncogene . The positive cases was with strong positive 3+ in 21.2% and in score 1 and 2 in 5.2% . High histologic grades of the breast IDC were associated with increased expression of HER-2/neu. There were 2 cases of HER-2/neu-positive (16.6%) with a grade 1 tumor, 4 (33.4%) with grade 2, and (50%) with grade 3 (P = .002 .There was a significant difference in HER-2/neu overexpression with the invasive ductal carcinoma and but no correlation was detected between HER-2/neu overexpression and the patient’s age. Aim of the Study: This study was conducted to estimate the overexpression of HER-2\neu protein in human breast carcinoma in comparison to benign breast lesions and to show its possible correlation to the pathological parameters ( grade and age) .