Overview of Current Challenges
Posted 12/3/2010
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The newest issue of Nature Reviews Journal of Clinical Oncology is devoted to an excellent series of articles about the latest challenges, successes, puzzles, and goals of breast cancer research and treatment. I am copying the introduction to the issue and then give you a link if you are inclined to do some fascinating scientific reading. Bottom line: there is good news, but this is a very complicated problem.
In contrast, my plan for tomorrow is to write a totally unscientific blog. Take your pick.
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer
worldwide after lung cancer, the fifth most
common cause of cancer death, and the leading
cause of cancer death in women. The global burden of
breast cancer exceeds all other cancers and the incidence
rates of breast cancer are increasing (Jemal, A. et al.
CA Cancer J. Clin. 60, 277-300; 2010). In light of these
grim statistics, we commissioned a special focus issue on
breast cancer for the December issue of Nature Reviews
Clinical Oncology to coincide with the 2010 San Antonio
Breast Cancer Symposium. We commissioned a series
of Reviews to cover the controversies and challenges
in treating triple- negative disease, screening, staging,
diagnosis and treatment of patients with BRCA mutations
and the signifi cant treatment advances in treating
these tumors that are of broad interest to the general
oncology community.
The heterogeneity of breast cancers makes them both
a fascinating and challenging solid tumor to diagnose
and treat. Triple-negative breast cancers in particular are
difficult to define—this tumor subgroup lacks expression
of HER2, the estrogen receptor and progesterone
receptor and do not respond to hormonal therapies or
HER2-targeted therapies (owing to the lack of expression
of these targets)—and these tumors are associated
with a poor prognosis; thus, new systemic therapies are
desperately needed. Luca Gianni and coauthors review
the evidence for the biology of this subtype, which shares
genetic and morphologic similarities with the basal-like
breast cancer subtype but also represents a biologically
distinct subtype that is heterogeneous. They also discuss
potential treatment options, including poly(ADP ribose)
polymerase (PARP) inhibitors, which have shown promising
efficacy and safety profiles in phase I and II clinical
trials in patients with triple-negative breast cancer.
http://tinyurl.com/3xl2afw
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