Evaluation of the Her-2/neu gene expression level as a response to radiotherapy and hormonal therapy in breast cancer patients

Abstract

The aim of this study is oriented to identify the expression pattern of Her-2/neu gene as a common marker to monitor responsiveness for chemo, radio and hormonal therapy in 67 females’ diagnosed of breast carcinoma. The material of this work was obtained from paraffin embedded tissues and blood of the same patients undergone surgery either in the form of Conservative wide local excision and axillary lymph node dissection or modified radical mastectomy, which were collected from South Egypt cancer Institute, Assuit University during period between 2011 to 2013 years. Beside, 20 blood samples were collected from healthy volunteers as control.  Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections were immunostained for estrogen, progesterone and HER-2/neu receptors. The avidin-biotin immunoperoxidase technique was applied for immunostaining steroids hormone receptors and automated IHC assay was used to investigate Her-2/neu gene expression by using DAKO HercepTest in this study. The immunohistochemical scoring results for Her-2/neu was then correlated with clinicalpathological data such as patient Summary and conclusion 131 age and tumor grade. Additionally, correlations between 3 markers expression were evaluated. Positive reaction for ER&PR were obtained when >10% of the tumor cells exhibited nuclear staining. For Her-2/neu scoring, the membranous expression was estimated and scored on a scale of 0 to 3+. Tumors with scores of 2 or greater were considered to be positive for Her-2/neu over-expression. Chi square test was used to assess the relationship between the immunoreactivity of Her-2/neu with clinicopathological parameters.