ESTROGEN BINDING SITES IN HUMAN NEOPLASIA; DETECTION USING A MORPHOLOGIC TECHNIQUE.

Abstract

Thirty six cases of human endometrium (9 normals, 9 adenomatous hyperplasias and 18 cancers) were established as finite monolayer tissue cultures. All were evaluated for the presence of estrogen binding sites (EBS) by an indirect immunofluorescent (IF) technique. Positive EBS were identified in 33% of normals, 67% of hyperplasias and 62% of cancers. Serial subpassage EBS evaluation was performed in fourteen cases. In was observed that the stability of EBS positivity in vitro was related to type of endometrium rather than culture longevity (2 of 2 normals, 2 of 4 hyperplasias and 1 of 8 cancers remained positive throughout the period of study). Twelve of the cancers were studied for estrogen receptor by cytosol assay and 11 (91.6%) correlated with the IF marker method. Thirty-eight cases of breast cancer were studied for EBS by a direct cytochemical and immunofluorescent technique. Evaluation by the direct method proved to be consistent and easy in performance. Morphologic positivity was 60% with the indirect method and 94.7% with the direct method. Correlation with the chemical cytosol was 77% with the indirect method and 86.8% with the direct method. These results confirm and compare favorably with other reported studies of morphologic methods. It was suggested that attention should be directed to cellular localization of receptors as a possible means for predicting endocrine responsiveness of neoplasms. Cancers from tissues presumed to be target-variants for estrogen stimulation were investigated with the direct cytochemical technique to determine if EBS were present. Forty-eight randomly selected tumors from multiple organ systems were assessed for EBS. Appropriate control tests were used to determine specificity. A total of 23 of the 48 cases were interpreted as positive for EBS. These sites were localized to cytoplasmic, nuclear and nucleolar cellular compartments. Estrogen and progesterone receptors in patients with breast carcinoma are of value in the selection of patients for hormonal adjuvant therapy. Whether this will prove to be true for EBS in a variety of neoplasms is currently unknown and is worthy of investigation.