Recent Trends of Breast Cancer Therapy Decided by the Results of Immunohistochemistry and in situ Hybridization

Abstract

Recently, some kinds of cancer drug therapy have become a so-called “tailor-made therapy” based on biological characters of cancer cells. Especially, in hormone dependent breast cancer, only ER (estrogen receptor) and/or PgR (progesterone receptor) positive cases are indicative to endocrine therapy. In addition, “trastuzumab”, a monoclonal antibody agent against to HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2), is effective to only HER2 positive breast cancer patients. To determine the indication of these drugs, ER, PgR and HER2 protein expression of breast cancer cells are examined by immunohistochemistry and HER2/neu gene amplification is evaluated by ISH (including FISH, SISH and CISH) methods. This trend is thought to be a fruit of numerous fundamental studies and ideal connections are produced by relationship between fundamental research and applied medical practice.