Abstract
Summary
The use of cytoplasmic estrogen receptor (ER) to help select patients with advanced breast cancer for endocrine therapy is well established and whenever possible should be part of the routine evaluation.
Other potential uses of steroid receptors are emerging. The data suggest that an ER determination on the primary tumor may be very important in designing new adjuvant trials. Finally, the presence of progesterone receptor in a tumor signals the presence of a higher ER content and very likely a favorable response to endocrine therapy.
Data from the author's own laboratory were supported in part by the NIH (CB 23862, CA 11378) and The American Cancer Society (BC-23G). I wish to thank Drs. Degenshein, King, Skinner, and Matsumoto for providing me with their data prior to publication, and Dr. J. P. Raynaud of Roussel Uclaf for providing the R5020 for the progesterone receptor studies.
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