Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013:2013:290568.
doi: 10.1155/2013/290568. Epub 2013 Feb 28.

Pathways to breast cancer recurrence

Aamir Ahmad  1
Affiliations

Pathways to breast cancer recurrence

Aamir Ahmad. ISRN Oncol. 2013.

Abstract

Breast cancer remains a deadly disease, even with all the recent technological advancements. Early intervention has made an impact, but an overwhelmingly large number of breast cancer patients still live under the fear of "recurrent" disease. Breast cancer recurrence is clinically a huge problem and one that is largely not well understood. Over the years, a number of factors have been studied with an overarching aim of being able to prognose recurrent disease. This paper attempts to provide an overview of our current knowledge of breast cancer recurrence and its associated challenges. Through a survey of the literature on cancer stem cells (CSCs), epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), various signaling pathways such as Notch/Wnt/hedgehog, and microRNAs (miRNAs), we also examine the hypotheses that are currently under investigation for the prevention of breast cancer recurrence.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Current understanding of breast tumor recurrence. Breast cancers localized at primary breast location and treated early can still relapse due to (a) existence of cancer stem cells and (b) transformation of cancer cells into a relatively aggressive phenotype. Cancer stem cells as well as transformed cancer cells are resistant to conventional therapies and highly metastatic. Recurrent breast cancers are typically marked by high percentage of aggressive cells.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Multiple factors that define the “stemness” in cancer stem cells.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Complex interplay of factors that influence breast cancer recurrence. The various molecular determinants of tumor recurrence are very intricately connected and interregulated, making it difficult to establish a hierarchical sense.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Siegel R, Naishadham D, Jemal A. Cancer statistics. CA: A Cancer Journal. 2012;62:10–29. - PubMed
    1. NCI's SEER cancer statistics review. 2012, http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2009_pops09/results_merged/sect_04_breas....
    1. Simard EP, Fedewa S, Ma J, Siegel R, Jemal A. Widening socioeconomic disparities in cervical cancer mortality among women in 26 states, 1993–2007. Cancer. 2012;118:5110–5116. - PubMed
    1. Tang J, Ahmad A, Sarkar FH. The complexities of racial disparity in breast cancer. In: Ahmad A, editor. Breast Cancer Metastasis and Drug Resistance. New York, NY, USA: Springer; 2012. pp. 35–46.
    1. Ahmad A, Wang Z, Ali R, et al. Cell cycle regulatory proteins in breast cancer: molecular determinants of drug resistance and targets for anticancer therapies. In: Aft RL, editor. Breast Cancer Cells. InTech; 2012. pp. 113–130.

LinkOut - more resources