Oestrogen and progesterone receptor expression in patients with adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix and correlation with various clinicopathological parameters.

OBJECTIVE The expression of oestrogen and progesterone receptors in patients with adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix was examined in order to determine their influence on prognosis and to evaluate the association between the steroid receptor expression and various clinicopathologic parameters. PATIENTS AND METHODS Oestrogen and progesterone receptor expression was investigated by immunohistochemistry from paraffin-embedded tissue in 39 patients with adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix. The immunohistochemical findings were correlated with various clinicopathological parameters of the patients. RESULTS Oestrogen and progesterone receptors were expressed in 39% and 33% of the patients, respectively. The relationship between oestrogen and progesterone receptor expression and clinical stage, age, histology, tumour size, grade, lymph-vascular space invasion and lymph node status did not reach statistical significance (p>0.05). Neither oestrogen nor progesterone receptor expression significantly influenced disease-free and overall survival (p>0.05). CONCLUSION Oestrogen and progesterone receptors were frequently expressed in adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix. However, their expression did not correlate with clinicopathological parameters and had no influence on overall and disease-free survival. Thus, the investigation of steroid receptors adds little additional information to the clinical management and fails to play a prognostic role in cervical adenocarcinoma.