Prognostic Significance of HER-2/neu and Survival of Breast Cancer Patients Attending a Specialized Breast Clinic in Kolkata, Eastern India

Introduction: The worldwide incidence of breast cancer has increased rapidly in recent years. The scenarioof Eastern India is also showing the same trend. It is necessary to study the utility of HER-2/neu as a prognosticfactor in breast cancer survival. However, there have not been detailed studies in this respect with the breastcancer patients of Eastern India. Thus this study was conducted. Materials and
Methods: In this hospital-basedstudy 86 breast cancer patients attending a breast clinic of a reputed institute of Eastern India and having invasiveductal carcinomas were observed for a period of 5 years after surgery. Associations between 5 years observedsurvival and status of ER, PR and HER-2/neu of the patients were critically evaluated.
Results: There wasstatistically significant association between survival pattern for 5 years and the HER-2/neu status (p=0.00001).Better survival was observed for the patients with HER-2/neu negative tumors 67(100%) compared to HER-2/neupositive tumors 7(36.8%).
Conclusion: There is strong interaction between survival and HER-2/neu expressionof breast cancer patients. Thus the patients with HER-2/neu positive tumors need to be treated aggressively.