Correlation between ERICA and DCC Assay in Hormone Receptor Assessment of Human Breast Cancer

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

To study the basic relationships between estrogen receptor immunocytochemical assay (ERICA) and dextran-coated charcoal (DCC) techniques, 116 women affected by breast cancer were admitted to the study from June 1985. In 56% of cases the tumor sample came from patients with operable disease and in 44% from patients with advanced inoperable disease. We found an overall agreement of 80% between the two methods characterized by a high sensitivity (95%) and a low specificity of ERICA versus DCC. ER/ICA negative results were found in 20 out of 78 ER/DCC positive cases; on the contrary, discordant results were found in only 3 out of 38 cases described by DCC as ER negative. 29 patients with advanced disease and ER/DCC positive tumors were considered for clinical analysis and reliability of each hormone receptor assay. A clinical response was reached in 69% of ER/DCC positive patients and on 64% of ER/ICA positive ones (16/25). However, it must be noted that 4/29 cases described as negative by ERICA were clinically responsive to hormone therapy.