Objective: To study the pathological characteristics of low HER2 expression in human breast cancer, detect the expression level by RT-qPCR, track the evolution of HER2 expression from needle biopsy to receive neoadjuvant treatment, and explore the efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Methods: A total of 293 HER2 negative patients and low HER2 expression admitted to Baotou Cancer Hospital from January 2019 to December 2022 were selected .FISH and RT-qPCR were used to detect the expression level of HER2 in the two groups. Results: In contrast to the HER2 negative group, low expression group of HER2 was significant statistical differences in ER, PR, MP grade, P53 and lymph node metastasis (P<0.05); There was no obvious relationship with age (P=0.731); The results of FISH analysis showed that the data of the two groups were significantly overlapped; and the mRNA expression level of RT-qPCR was a statistical difference (P<0.001).The optimal threshold by ROC curve was 184.18. RT-qPCR compared to IHC, the consistency between the two methods was 0.502, a medium level. Before and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the incidence of HER2 discordance was 39.8%; There is a close correlation between HER2 status and the probability of obtaining pCR (P=0.005). Conclusion: HER2 low breast cancer differ from HER2 negative in pathological features. Quantitative detection of HER2 mRNA expression by RT-qPCR can be used as a complementary technique for IHC method. The expression of HER2 showed high instability following neoadjuvant therapy. Moreover, neoadjuvant chemotherapy has less efficacy in patients with HER2 low breast cancer.
WANG Mengqi
,
BAI Xuefeng
,
ZHAO Zhiying
. Pathological characteristics and dynamic changes analysis of low human epidermal growth factor 2 expression in breast cancer[J]. Journal of Baotou Medical College, 2025
, 41(2)
: 69
-74
.
DOI: 10.16833/j.cnki.jbmc.2025.02.013
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