The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic impact that
hormone receptor (HR) expressions have on the two different
breast cancer (BC) entities-multifocal versus unifocal BC. As the prognosis determining aspects, we investigated the overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) by univariate and multivariate analysis. To underline the study's conclusions, we additionally considered the histopathological grading and the
tumor node
metastasis (TNM) staging. A retrospective analysis was performed on survival-related events in a series of 320
breast cancer patients treated at the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the Ludwig Maximillian University in Munich between 2000 and 2002. All three
steroid receptors analyzed by immunohistochemistry, namely, the
estrogen receptor (ER), the
progesterone receptor (PR), and the
vitamin D receptor (VDR), showed a significantly positive influence on the course of the disease, but only for the unifocal
breast tumor patients. The prognosis of patients with multifocal
breast cancer was either not affected by
estrogen and/or
progesterone receptor expression or even involved a worse etiopathology for the
vitamin D receptor-positive patients. The
estrogen receptor in unifocal
breast cancer and the
vitamin D receptor in multifocal
breast cancer were especially identified as an independent prognostic marker for overall survival, when adjusted for age, grading, and staging. Altogether, our results strengthen the need to further investigate the behavior of the
hormone receptors in
breast cancer and understand why they have different effects on each focality type. Moreover, the studies for an adopted
vitamin D supplementation due to
breast cancer focality type must be enlarged to fully comprehend the remarkable and interesting role played by the
vitamin D receptor.