Controversy surrounds the potential clinical importance of oestrogen receptor (ER)beta in breast cancer, and three recent papers have sought to resolve this. In the present issue of Breast Cancer Research Novelli and colleagues explored the significance of ERbeta1 expression in 936 breast cancer patients, and they showed diverse relationships according to lymph node status. A second paper examined 442 breast cancers in which ERbeta1 was an independent predictor of recurrence, disease-free survival and overall survival. Finally a third paper showed that ERbeta2 was a powerful prognostic indicator in 757 breast cancers but this was dependent on cellular location, with nuclear ERbeta2 expression predicting good survival whilst cytoplasmic expression predicted worse outcome. These papers point to a clinical role for ERbeta in breast cancer and shall be discussed.