Androgen-receptor: a new drug target in breast cancer
New results presented at the first IMPAKT Breast Cancer Conference may help scientists develop treatments for women with a type of breast cancer that currently does not respond to targeted therapies.
Although most people think of breast cancer as a single disease, doctors have recently come to understand that it is actually comes in a variety of different “subtypes” that diagnosed based upon the presence three “receptors" found on cancer cells: estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2).
Effective treatments have been developed to target each of these receptors, but some cancers are estrogen receptor-negative, progesterone receptor-negative and HER2-negative, and are known as "triple negative” breast cancers. Triple-negative tumors generally do not respond to receptor-targeted treatments.
In recent years, scientists have begun looking for new targets in these “triple-negative” cancers. One that has been identified is the androgen-receptor.
At the IMPAKT Breast Cancer Conference, Dr. Sibylle Loibl and colleagues report that in a group of 682 patients with primary breast cancer, almost half expressed androgen receptor.
The patients they studied had taken part in a trial where they received treatment with three chemotherapy drugs. Among those with triple-negative tumors, the researchers found that expression of the androgen receptor was correlated with a lower likelihood of an effective treatment.
“This group has looked for the expression of androgen receptor in breast cancer and found a sub-group of the population who do express it, and have shown that these patients respond worse to chemotherapy than those whose tumors do not express androgen receptor,” said Professor Jose Baselga, co-chair of the Conference.
He noted that a clinical trial is currently underway to try and target the androgen receptor in breast cancer. “I think we are seeing the birth of a new concept in breast cancer—the androgen-receptor-positive breast cancer,” Professor Baselga said. “This is an important development in finding new targets that we can attack with new drugs in the future.”
The IMPAKT conference is designed to present and discuss advances in translational research and ways to quickly transform laboratory discoveries into tools that clinicians can use to help make decisions about the way they treat patients in their daily practice.
IMPAKT is being launched by the Breast International Group and the European Society for Medical Oncology, in collaboration with the St. Gallen Primary Therapy of Early Breast Cancer Conference and the three European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC) partners, which are The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Breast Cancer Group, The European Society of Breast Cancer Specialists, and Europa Donna – The European Breast Cancer Coalition. IMPAKT is also supported of the European School of Oncology.
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