HER-2 amplification in tubular carcinoma of the breast.

The prognostic and therapeutic implications of HER-2 gene amplification and estrogen and progesterone receptor status in breast cancer are well described. To address the relative paucity of information concerning HER-2 amplification for tubular carcinomas, we assessed the frequency of gene amplification in 55 tubular carcinomas of the breast from 54 patients, 5 of which had axillary node metastases. The HER-2 gene copy number was assessed by fluorescence in situ hybridization for the majority of tumors analyzed, whereas estrogen and progesterone receptor status was achieved by immunohistochemical analysis. HER-2 gene amplification was not observed in any of the tumors examined, and most were estrogen receptor-positive. This HER-2 gene amplification frequency was significantly lower than the frequency of gene amplification previously reported for all invasive ductal carcinoma of no special type (P < .01). HER-2 gene amplification likely occurs infrequently, or not at all, in tubular carcinomas of the breast, whereas most express estrogen receptors.

Automated cell nuclear segmentation in color images of hematoxylin and eosin-stained breast biopsy.

OBJECTIVE: To develop an automated, reproducible epithelial cell nuclear segmentation method to quantify cytologic features quickly and accurately from breast biopsy. STUDY DESIGN: The method, based on fuzzy c-mean clustering of the hue-band of color images and the watershed transform, was applied to 39 images from 3 histologic types (typical hyperplasia, atypical hyperplasia, and ductal carcinoma in situ [cribriform and solid]). RESULTS: The performance of the segmentation algorithm was evaluated by visually determining the percentage of badly segmented nuclei (approximately 25% for all types), the percentage of nuclei that remained in clumps (4.5-16.7%) and the percentage of missed nuclei (0.4-1.5%) for each image. CONCLUSION: The segmentation algorithm was sensitive in that a small percentage of nuclei were missed. However, the percentage of badly segmented nuclei was on the order of 25%, and the percentage of nuclei that remained in clumps was on the order of 10% of the total number of nuclei in the duct. Even so, > 600 nuclei per duct, on average, were segmented correctly; that was a sufficient number by which to calculate accurate quantitative, cytologic, morphometric measurements of epithelial cell nuclei in stained tissue sections of breast biopsy.