Her 2 Overexpression in Breast Carcinoma; Its Significance and Association with Age… Nazia Ishaq et al. Ann. Pak. Inst. Med. Sci. 2014; 10(1)54-56 54 Original Article Her 2 Overexpression in Breast Carcinoma; Its Significance and Association with Age and Tumor Grade Abstract Objective: To find the frequency of Her-2/neu over expression in breast cancer and its association with age and tumor grade. Study Design: Cross- sectional comparative study. Place and Duration of the Study: Dept of General Surgery, PIMS, from February 2012 February 2013. Methodology: Data of 68 patients of diagnosed carcinoma breast were retrieved from HMIS. Data were collected for age, tumor type, Her-2 receptor status, ER, PR status and tumor grade. Data was retrospectively analyzed using SPSS 17. Mean and standard deviation were calculated. Chi-square test was applied for calculating p value. Results: Total number of patients were 68. The age ranged from 23 to 68 years with a mean of 46.69±10.23 years. Among those 68 patients, 65 (95.6%) had invasive ductal carcinoma, 2 (2.9%) had invasive lobular carcinoma and 1 (1.5%) had medullary carcinoma. Patients with positive for Her-2/neu overexpression were sixteen (23.5%). Forty three (63.2%) patients were positive for estrogen receptors and 32 (47.1%) patients were positive for progesterone receptors. Among 16 patients of Her-2/neu positive group, 5 were estrogen receptor positive and 6 were progesterone receptor positive. Seventy five(12) percent patients were in tumor grade II and 18,75%(3) were in tumor grade III and 6.2%(1) were in grade 1. Age did not show statistically significant association to Her-2/neu positivity (p=0.782). Tumor grade also had no statistically significant relation to Her- 2/neu status (p=0.287). Conclusion: The pathological and clinical characteristics of Her-2/neu positive and negative subsets differ, and Her-2/neu overexpression was associated with other poor prognostic factors of age, tumour size and number of nodes involved. There was an inverse relation of Her-2/neu status and hormone receptor. Key Words: Carcinoma breast, Her 2 neu, lymph node metastases. *Nazia Ishaque **Komail Malik ***Tanwir Khaliq *Senior Registrar Dept of Gen Surgery, PIMS **3rd year Medical student Aga Khan Medical College, Karachi ***Professor & Head of Dept. Dept of Gen Surgery, PIMS Address for Correspondence Dr. Nazia Ishaque Senior Registrar, Dept. of General Surgery, Unit-I, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad Email: naziaishaq@yahoo.com Introduction Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among females worldwide. 1 Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in Pakistani females. 2 Prevalence of the breast cancer is estimated to be 1,000,000 annually. 3 About 1.3 million American women annually are diagnosed with breast cancer and about 465 000 die from the disease. 4 Pakistani women show an incidence rate of 50/100,000 and in India with similar socio-cultural background the incidence rate is 19/100,000(5naeem et al). Her- 2/neu, also known as c-erb B-2, is a member of type-1 Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) family of receptor tyrosine kinases. Members of this family have intrinsic tyrosine kinase activity and are considered important mediators of cell growth, differentiation and survival. 6 This protein plays an important role in regulating cell growth, and by overexpression induces high mitotic activity and