Clinicopathological study of benign and malignant ovarian tumours and the role of HER2/neu and ER expression in these tumours

Background: Ovarian cancers represent the 6th most common cancer among females and are the most common cause of death from gynaecological cancers in the world. The aim is to do clinicopathologic study of ovarian tumours along with evaluation of the expression of estrogen receptor (ER) and human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER2/neu).Methods: A total of 85 cases of ovarian tumors were studied and immunohistochemistry was performed with specific antibodies against ER and HER2/neu as per standard protocol.Results: In present study, surface epithelial tumours were the commonest type comprising 64 cases (75.2%), followed by Germ cell tumours, 17cases (20%) and sex cord stromal tumours, 04 cases (4.8%).Among the surface epithelial tumours , ER‑positive cases were higher in malignant (71.4%) tumours as compared to borderline tumours (33.3%) and benign tumours (7.7%) while Her2/neu positive cases were higher in borderline (66.7%) tumours as compared to malignant tumours (42.9%) and benign tumours (15.3%).Among the germ cell tumours, ER expression was positive in 62.5% cases of mature teratoma while HER2/neu expression was positive in only 12.5% cases of mature teratoma. None of the sex cord stromal tumours showed positive expression of ER and HER2/neu.Conclusions: Positive expression of estrogen receptors is seen predominantly in surface epithelial malignancies and in mature teratoma. It proves the mitogenic role of estrogen in ovarian tumours. Her-2 neu was expressed mainly in malignant tumours. This suggests their carcinogenic role. This also helps in differentiating borderline and malignant tumours.