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Breast Cancer Research and Treatment
Published in: Breast Cancer Research and Treatment 3/2008

01-02-2008 | Epidemiology

Advanced stages and poorly differentiated grade are associated with an increased risk of HER2/neu positive breast carcinoma only in White women: findings from a prospective cohort study of African-American and White-American women

Authors: Azadeh Stark, Alissa Kapke, Daniel Schultz, Ron Brown, Michael Linden, Usha Raju

Published in: Breast Cancer Research and Treatment | Issue 3/2008

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Abstract

Objective

The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the race-specific risk associated with HER2/neu positive breast carcinoma in a prospective cohort design. Our secondary objectives were to assess prevalence of different breast cancer phenotypes between African-American and White women and to determine if race was associated with the risk of basal-like breast carcinoma phenotype in this cohort.

Methods

Demographic, clinical and pathologic data were collected from existing databases. The status of HER2/neu and hormone receptors was dichotomized as either positive or negative. Immunohistochemistry taxonomy was used to assess prevalence of different breast carcinoma phenotypes. Risk estimates were calculated using the multivariable logistic regression statistics.

Conclusions

The risk of HER2/neu positive breast carcinoma differs between African-American and White women. For White women only, this risk was statistically significant and increased almost linearly within each TNM stage with grade dedifferentiation. The statistically significantly higher prevalence of “ER−/PR−, HER2− ” phenotype in African American women potentially is the attributing factor to observed lack of an association between the risk of HER2/neu positive breast carcinoma with advanced stages and poorly differentiated grade. Among women diagnosed with “ER−/PR−, HER2−” phenotype the odds ratios of being African-American and pre-menopausal was 1.72 (95% CI 1.17–2.54, P = 0.006) and 1.94 (95% CI 1.27–2.96, P = 0.002), respectively. The histologic features of basal-like and ER−/HER2+ carcinomas overlaps. Differences in the biology of breast carcinoma between African American and White women are partially attributed to the disparity in more adverse pathologic prognostic indicators at the initial clinical presentation of this disease.
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Metadata
Title
Advanced stages and poorly differentiated grade are associated with an increased risk of HER2/neu positive breast carcinoma only in White women: findings from a prospective cohort study of African-American and White-American women
Authors
Azadeh Stark
Alissa Kapke
Daniel Schultz
Ron Brown
Michael Linden
Usha Raju
Publication date
01-02-2008
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Breast Cancer Research and Treatment / Issue 3/2008
Print ISSN: 0167-6806
Electronic ISSN: 1573-7217
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-007-9560-5

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