ArticleModern pathology : an official journal of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, Inc2020
Receptor conversion in metastatic breast cancer: analysis of 390 cases from a single institution.
Article in Modern pathology : an official journal of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, Inc, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 60 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evaluating Automated Tools for Lesion Detection onRadiology. Imaging cancer · 2025Trial
- Metachronous Metastatic Invasive Breast Carcinoma and Metastatic Small Cell Carcinoma Clinically and Radiologically Favoured to Be of Pulmonary Origin: A Case Report.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- HER2-low metastatic breast cancers: clinic-pathological characteristics, metastatic sites, and survival impact on biomarker discordance.Virchows Archiv : an international journal of pathology · 2026Article
- Breast Cancer Liver Metastasis: Primary tumor predictors and histopathologic characteristics of metastatic lesions.Research square · 2026Article
- New perspectives on endocrine therapy suitability for hormone receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer in clinical practice.Breast (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2026Review
- Molecular profiling of breast cancer pleural effusions using cytology specimens: Impact of sample source and cytological features on next-generation sequencing performance.Cancer cytopathology · 2026Article
- Heterogeneity of Hormone Receptors and HER2 in Breast Cancer Cutaneous Metastases: An Institutional Experience.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Breast cancer liver metastases and the impact of receptor expression on survival.Clinical & experimental metastasis · 2026Article
- A decade of receptor discordance and phenotypic transitions in metastatic breast cancer: a single-center retrospective study of 363 cases.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
- Distinguishing Second Primary Müllerian Cancer from Breast Cancer Recurrence: Immunohistochemical Pitfalls and a Proposed Diagnostic Algorithm: A Case Report and Literature Review.Cancer management and research · 2026Article
- Receptor Discordance and Molecular Subtype Changes in Visceral Metastases of Breast Cancer.Breast cancer (Dove Medical Press) · 2026Article
- AI-driven virtual cell models in preclinical research: technical pathways, validation mechanisms, and clinical translation potential.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Review
- HER2 expression in cervical squamous cell carcinoma: high prevalence of HER2-low/ultralow and spatiotemporal heterogeneity across tumor evolution.NPJ precision oncology · 2025Article
- Clinical relevance of circulating biomarkers in breast cancer metastasis detection: "insights from liquid biopsy technology".Research in pharmaceutical sciences · 2025Article
- The association between young age at metastatic breast cancer diagnosis and overall survival in the EMBRACE study.NPJ breast cancer · 2025Article
- A Rare Cause of Intestinal Obstruction: Invasive Lobular Breast Carcinoma Metastasizing to the Ileocecal Valve.Cureus · 2025Article
- Multidisciplinary discussion on phenotypical characterization of metastatic breast cancer and patient pathway optimization from an expert panel across South Italian regions.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) expression dynamics between diagnosis and recurrence in patients with breast cancer using artificial intelligence and electronic health records: the RosHER study.ESMO real world data and digital oncology · 2025Article
- Estrogen Regulated Genes Compel Apoptosis in Breast Cancer Cells, Whilst Stimulate Antitumor Activity in Peritumoral Immune Cells in a Janus-Faced Manner.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2024Review
- Molecular features of luminal breast cancer defined through spatial and single-cell transcriptomics.Clinical and translational medicine · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) status provide clinical utility in guiding therapeutic decision-making in metastatic breast cancer (BC). Increasing data have shown substantial differences between the receptor profiles of primary BCs and their paired metastases. In this study, we provide a large single center cohort to assess the frequency of receptor conversion in metastatic BC. The overall discordant rates were 18.3%, 40.3%, and 13.7% for ER, PR, and HER2, respectively. The discordance was significantly higher for PR when compared with ER and HER2. The conversion occurred significantly as a switch from positive to negative receptor status when compared with that from negative to positive for all three receptors. Semiquantitative analyses revealed a significantly decreased expression of both ER (25%) and PR (57%) in the metastases. There was a higher rate of PR discordance in bone metastases when comparing to other common organs of relapse. Furthermore, in the subset of patients with a single primary and multiple distant metastases, the discordant rates among the distant sites were 27.5%, 39.4%, and 14.3% for ER, PR, and HER2, respectively. A positive ER status, be it in primary or metastatic BC, was associated with a prolonged metastasis-free survival when compared with ER-negative primary tumors without conversion. Furthermore, a positive ER status in metastatic BC regardless of primary was associated with a superior overall survival when compared with an ER-negative tumor without conversion. Thus, receptor conversion is a frequent event in the course of BC progression, and can also be seen between different metastatic sites. Moreover, some conversions are of prognostic significance. The findings may reflect tumor heterogeneity, sampling or treatment effect, but may also indicate alteration in tumor biology. Repeat biomarker testing is warranted in making appropriate treatment plans in the pursuit of precision medicine.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.