Influences of adjuvant treatments in hormone receptor positive breast cancer on receptor conversion in recurrent breast cancer.

Background: To examine influences on the receptor status of a local cohort of patients with recurrent breast cancer after primary diagnosis of hormone receptor positive breast cancer.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 2078 female patients with primary hormone receptor positive breast cancer treated at the university hospital of Wuerzburg between 2000 and 2013. Main focus was on discordance in receptor status in recurrent disease.

Results: 196 patients with the primary diagnosis of hormone receptor positive breast cancer developed recurrent disease. 29.1% of patients revealed discordance in estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PgR) or HER2 receptor (ER to : 33.3%; PgR to : 59.6%; HER2 to : 8.8%; HER2 to : 17.5%). Aggressive tumor biology such as low grading or involvement of axillary lymph nodes showed increased risk of receptor conversion in relapse. Premenopausal patients with adjuvant application of tamoxifen and the application of chemotherapy had a significantly lower risk for the development of ER negative recurrent disease. Receptor changes to ER and PgR negativity in recurrent disease showed a trend to worse overall survival (OS).

Conclusions: Histological analysis of recurrent disease is indispensable, since one-third of patients with hormone receptor positive breast cancer develop change in the receptor status.