Estrogen and progesterone receptor reactivity may be useful in identifying possible primary sites of metastatic disease ai directing therapy in tumors of the female genital tract, including breast, ovary, and endometrium. Various methods have been described for the immunocytochemical evaluation of estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) status of cytologic specimens but our results have been variable We evaluated the effectiveness of various fixatives [cytospin collection fluid, Shandon, Pittsburgh, PA (SH); ethanol (ETH); and formalin (FOR)] for fixation of smears (SM) and cell black (CB) material.
The percentage and intensity of tumor nuclei of SM, CB, and tissue sections (TS) stained for ER and PR by tire avidin-biotin-peroxidase complex technique were compared. Samples were considered ER ar PR positive when greater than or equal to 20% of tumor nuclei were stained. The sensitivity of ER analysis of SMs and CBs in each fixative compared to formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue sections were as follows: Sn-l (SH) 88%, SM (ETH) 14%, CB (SH) 58%, CB (ETH) 43%, and CB (FOR) 70%. The sensitivity of PR determination on SMs and CBs was Sill (SH) 71%, SM (ETH) 6.0%, CB (SH) 25%, CB (ETH) 33%, CB (FOR) 80%. These findings indicate that of the fixatives evaluated for ER analysis, SMs fixed in SH provided the best results. For PR evaluation, CBs fixed in FOR gave the best results. (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
