Effects of Oestrogen Receptor Status of Women with Breast Cancer Treated with Tamoxifen at University Teaching Hospital and Cancer Diseases Hospital

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of oestrogen receptor-negative breast cancers at UTH and CDH and its impact on tamoxifen management. The specific objectives of the study were to determine the prevalence of oestrogen receptor negative of breast cancer patients; to determine other clinical and epidemiological characteristics of these patients with ER negative breast cancer; and to determine the short term (six months) clinical outcome of oestrogen receptor negative breast cancer patients on tamoxifen therapy following mastectomy. The study combined cross sectional and prospective observational designs. The immunostaining include breast cancer histologically confirmed in participants not pre-treated with tamoxifen at UTH and CDH. Forty-six female breast cancer patients were recruited for this study. The impact of ER negative and management of breast cancer with tamoxifen was measured through changes observed in QOL(EuroQol Group's EQ5D) questionnaire combined with two clinical characteristics that were investigated namely chest radiography and axillary lymph nodes in relation to ER negative. The study has revealed a higher prevalence of oestrogen receptor negative among the participants. The data demonstrates that ER positive tumours accounted for about 45.7% of all tumours, whereas 54.3% were ER negative tumours. Therefore, in this study the ER positive rate was lower than that ER negative. The results about the quality of life tended to slight increase between the first and second visit and significantly decline between the second and third visits. Total quality of life in the patients declined significantly at the third visit. This trend was noted in both the ER negative and ER positive groups. But the worst results were observed in the ER negative group. Lastly, the results revealed a significant association between diabetes mellitus and ER status; patients who were diabetic were likely to be ER negative. The study has established that although the quality of life declined significantly in all the participants, the ER negative proved to be worse. These results suggest that tumour with ER negative; adjuvant tamoxifen therapy may have no benefit