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BACKGROUND: Breast cancer grows in a hormonerich environment which influences its biological features and thus, ultimately, its clinical behaviour especially in postmenopausal patients.OBJETIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the circulating serum hormone levels in postmenopausal breast cancer patients and correlate with all available clinical and biological features of the tumors.MATERIAL AND METHODS: Prior to surgery FSH, LH,17-beta-estradiol, progesterone and prolactine were measured in 161 postmenopausal breast cancer patients.All tumors were studied after surgery for clinical parameters: axillary node status, size, histological grade and nuclear grade and for molecular parameters: hormone receptor (ER and PR), ki67, c-erb-B2, p53, Bax and Bcl-2 expression by means of inmunohistochemistry and DNA-ploidy by means of flow cytometry.For the correlation of hormone levels with continuos variables we used Spearmans test, because none of the latter showed a Gaussian distribution.Significance was considered at p<0.05.RESULTS: The median of the different hormone level values were as follows: FSH 62.9 mlU/ml, LH 25.7 mIU/ml, estradiol 16 pg/ml, progesterone 0.7 pg/ml and prolactine 7.8ng/ml.In postmenopausal patients, circulating estradiol levels were inversely related to c-erb-B2 expression (p: 0, 03) and Bax protein expression (p: 0, 0091) by tumors.FSH levels showed an inverse correlation (p: 0,041) with circulating estradiol levels.Circulating progesterone levels were directly related (p: <0, 0001) to estrogen levels in our group of postmenopausal patients.CONCLUSIONS: Circulating estradiol levels in postmenopausal breast cancer patients seem to be associated with a less proliferative breast cancer phenotype.