Allred D Craig, Brown Powel, Medina Daniel
Breast Center/Department of Pathology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA.
Breast Cancer Res. 2004;6(6):240-5. doi: 10.1186/bcr938. Epub 2004 Sep 22.
Current hormonal therapies have benefited millions of patients with breast cancer. Their success, however, is often temporary and limited to a subset of patients whose tumors express estrogen receptor alpha (ER). The therapies are entirely ineffective in ER-negative disease. Recent studies suggest that there are many biological pathways and alterations involved in determining whether ER is expressed and how it is regulated during breast cancer evolution. Improving hormonal therapies, in addition to perfecting current strategies, will also target these newly discovered pathways and alterations, and others yet to be found. The present commentary will briefly highlight a few important observations and unanswered questions regarding ER status and growth regulation during breast cancer evolution, which hopefully will help to stimulate new thinking and progress in this important area of medial research.
目前的激素疗法已使数百万乳腺癌患者受益。然而，它们的成功往往是暂时的，并且仅限于肿瘤表达雌激素受体α（ER）的一部分患者。这些疗法对ER阴性疾病完全无效。最近的研究表明，在乳腺癌发展过程中，有许多生物学途径和改变参与决定ER是否表达以及如何被调控。除了完善当前策略外，改进激素疗法还将针对这些新发现的途径和改变以及其他尚未发现的途径和改变。本评论将简要强调一些关于乳腺癌发展过程中ER状态和生长调控的重要观察结果及未解决的问题，希望这将有助于激发这一重要医学研究领域的新思维和进展。
