MATERIALS AND METHODS: Cervical scrapings were collected from women attending clinics for routine Pap smear screening. HPV-DNA was detected by PCR using MY09/11 and GP5+/GP6+ primer sets and genotyping was accomplished by cycle-sequencing.
RESULTS: A total of 635 women were recruited into the study with mean ± SD age of 43 ± 10.5 years. Of these 92.6% (588/635) were reported as within normal limits (WNL) on cytology. The presence of HPV infection detected by nested MY/GP+-PCR was 4.4% (28/635). The overall prevalence of high-risk HPV (HR-HPV) in abnormal Pap smears was 53.8% (7/13). HPVs were also seen in 3.1% (18/588) of smears reported as WNL by cytology and 5.9% (2/34) in smears unsatisfactory for evaluation.
CONCLUSIONS: The overall percentage of HPV positivity in routine cervical screening samples is comparable with abnormal findings in cytology. Conventional Pap smear 'missed' a few samples. Since HPV testing is expensive, our results may provide valuable information for strategising implementation of effective cervical cancer screening in a country with limited resources like Malaysia. If Pap smear coverage could be improved, HPV testing could be used as an adjunct method on cases with ambiguous diagnoses.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association between clinico-pathological features and HER2 overexpression in breast cancer.
METHODS: This is a retrospective study conducted in the Department of Surgery, University Malaya Medical Centre. The association between HER2 overexpression, determined by immunohistochemistry, and other clinicopathological factors was evaluated in 996 patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer treated from 2005 to 2007 using univariate and multivariate logistic regression.
RESULTS: HER2 overexpression occurred in 30.3% of patients. On bivariate analysis, HER2 overexpression was inversely related to ER expression (p<0.01) and PR expression (p<0.01). This overexpression was associated with a higher tumour grade, lymphovascular positivity and infiltrating ductal carcinoma subtype. On multivariate analysis, HER2 overexpression was significantly associated with higher tumour grade (p= 0.018, CI 1.25-11.04), PR negativity (p= 0.002, CI 0.30-0.77) and lymphovascular positivity (p= 0.042, CI 1.01-2.12).
CONCLUSIONS: HER2 overexpression was observed in 30.3% of Malaysian female breast cancer patients. This group of patients represents a more aggressive subtype of breast cancer with higher tumour grade, PR negativity and lymphovascular positivity. No significant relationship was established between HER2 overexpression and age, race, lymph node, ER, pathology subtype and stage of disease from this study.