Publication:

Clinicopathological and IHC study (estrogen receptors, progesterone receptor, HER2/NEU) in malignant ovarian tumors

Background Ovarian cancer is the second most common gynaecologic malignancy, most common cause of gynaecologic cancer death and has worst prognosis among all gynecological malignancies. The clinical significance of ER and PR content in ovarian carcinomas has not been well established in the literature.

Methods A prospective study was conducted over a period of 2 years (2013-2015) in the department of pathology, Andhra Medical College, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India. The study includes 42 cases of ovarian cancers. Representative 3-4μm sections were taken and IHC was performed with specific antibodies.

Results The mean age at presentation was 39.5 years, majority of the ovarian carcinomas occurred in the age group of third and fifth decade (20/42). The commonest clinical presentation was mass per abdomen. The commonest histological type was malignant surface epithelial tumors (25/42, 59.55%) of which serous cystadenocarcinioma was the predominant tumor followed by germ cell tumors (9/42, 21.42%). Ascites was associated with higher grade and higher stage of tumors. Majority of the ovarian carcinomas were of grade 2 (57.14%) and stage 3 (35.7%).  ER was positive in (9/42) 21.42%, PR was positive in (10/42) 23.8% and Her2/neu was equivocal in (3/42) 7.14% of ovarian carcinomas. ER, PR and Her2 showed similar expression, with higher expression in cases of advanced disease.

Conclusions The expression of steroid hormonal receptors in ovarian cancers paves way for antihormonal therapy/ targeted therapy and this requires more number of studies with larger sample size.