Clinicopathological pattern of oestrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 over-expression of epithelial ovarian carcinomas in Nigeria

Background: Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from all gynaecological malignancies. Only few biomarkers of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) prognosis have been studied so far among Nigerian patients.Objective: To determine the pattern of oestrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2) expression in patients with EOC seen in NigeriaMaterials and Methods: This was a retrospective multicentre study of 102 cases of epithelial ovarian cancers. Relevant clinical information was obtained from hospital-based records in the 3 participating centres. Tissue microarrays were constructed using representative tumour tissue and the ER, PR and HER2 immunohistochemical staining was carried out at the University of Chicago, United States of America.Results: Serous carcinomas predominated (71% of cases). ER positivity was observed in 31.4%, PR positivity in 21.5% and HER2/neu in 16.7% of tumours. Fifty-two percent of tumours were triple negative. Serous tumours were significantly asso- ciated with ER positivity (p=0.001). Mean patient age for EOC was 52.6 +/- 13.1 years. There were no statistically significant associations between hormone receptor status and histological grade, FIGO staging or survival.Conclusion: Serous tumours were significantly associated with ER expression while non-serous tumours tended to be triple negative.