IMMUNOHISTOCHEMICAL ASSAY FOR OESTROGEN RECEPTORS IN PARAFFIN WAX SECTIONS OF BREAST CARCINOMA USING A NEW MONOCLONAL ANTIBODY

✍ Scribed by HUANG, AIHUA; PETTIGREW, NORMAN M.; WATSON, PETER H.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 581 KB
• Volume: 180
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-3417
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1096-9896(199610)180:2<223::aid-path635>3.0.co;2-h

✦ Synopsis

The aim of this study was to evaluate the utility of a new monoclonal antibody (AER311) that targets the oestrogen receptor (ER) in an immunohistochemical assay (IHA) applied to breast cancers. Ninety-seven cases of invasive ductal carcinoma were studied by AER311-IHA using a pressure-cooking antigen retrieval technique applied to formaldehyde-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections; immunostaining was assessed by semi-quantitative scoring (H score). There was 80 per cent concordance between the ER status measured by dextran-coated charcoal (DCC) assay and AER311-IHA1 with 63/97 (65 per cent) tumours positive and 15/97 (15 per cent) tumours negative by both assays. Of the 12 DCC-positive cases that were negative by AER311-IHA, 11 were borderline positive (3-8 fmovmg). Similarly, six of seven DCC-negative cases that scored positive by AER311-IHA had only borderline positive H scores ( G O ) . When AER311-IHA was compared with 1D5-IHA, there was good concordance in ER status (77 per cent) and a significant correlation (v= 0.7, P<O.OOl) between H scores. Nevertheless, the correlation between ER level determined by AER311-IHA and that measured by DCC ( ~0 . 5 3 , P<O-OOI) was higher than that for 1DS-IHA ( ~0 . 3 2 , P=0*002). AER311-IHA can therefore provide reliable information about the ER status of breast carcinoma on paraffin sections and is an acceptable alternative to other commercially available monoclonal antibodies.