Objective: To investigate the expression of oncoprotein c-erbB2 in primary breast cancer and to analyze its relation to its prognosis.
Methods: Immunohistochemical staining for c-erbB2 was performed on paraffin-embedded specimens of primary breast cancer from 284 patients, and the relation to its prognosis was statistically analyzed.
Results: Positive expression rate of c-erbB2 was 26.8% (76/284) in 284 primary breast cancer patients. Expression of c-erbB2 was positively correlated with the status of lymph node metastasis (P = 0.003). Univariate analysis indicated that c-erbB2 expression is a significant prognostic factor for the disease-free survival (DFS) (P = 0.024) and overall survival (OS) (P = 0.002), while multivariate analysis demonstrated that c-erbB2 is an independent prognostic factor for OS (P = 0.023). Moreover, tumors with c-erbB2 positive expression are more tend to metastasis to other viscera than those with c-erbB2 negative. c-erbB2 expression has different prognostic values for patients with different status of estrogen receptor (ER) and lymph node metastasis.
Conclusion: c-erbB2 expression is an independent prognostic factor for total survival time in primary breast cancer patients, and its prognostic values are different according to the different ER status and lymph node metastasis.