Recent analyses support divergent incidence trends by ER status in the United States, Denmark and Ireland, with ER+ breast cancer incidence increasing and ER− breast cancer incidence decreasing.7–9 Data on a combination of subtypes using ER, PR and HER2 are even more limited, with few reports from the United Kingdom.10–12 ER, PR and HER2 molecular markers are used often as surrogates for the intrinsic subtypes of breast cancer defined by mRNA expression profiling13 because, unlike genetic profiling subtypes, the molecular markers have been measured routinely in recent years. Here, ERBB2 is linked to breast cancer.