Objective: To investigate the expression of wild type estrogen receptor (wER) and the exon-5 deleted ER (variant ER, vER) in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) samples, and thereafter analyze the possibility of HCC treatment by endocrine therapy.
Methods: The mRNA expressions of wER and vER were analysed from 28 cases of HCC by RT-PCR. The expression of ER at the protein level was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC).
Results: IHC results showed that 39.3% of the HCC specimens expressed ER. The mRNA of wER was detected in 89.3% (25/28) of the HCC specimens while that of vER was detected in 96.4%(27/28). Twenty four out of 28 HCC cases (85.7 %) expressed both wER and vER. One out of 28 patients (3.5%) expressed only wER whereas 3 patients out of 28 (10.7%) expressed vER only.
Conclusion: Ninety six percent(27/28) of the HCC patients expressed vER,which suggests that the expression of vER is an important event in the development of HCC.