Recouvreux S, Sampayo R, Bessone MID, Simian M. Microenvironment and endocrine resistance in breast cancer: Friend or foe? World J Clin Oncol 2015; 6(6): 207-211 [PMID: 26677432 DOI: 10.5306/wjco.v6.i6.207]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Marina Simian, PhD, Conicet Independent Researcher, CEDESI, Escuela de Humanidades and Instituto de Nanosistemas, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, 25 de mayo y Francia, San Martín 1650, Buenos Aires, Argentina. marina.simian@galuzzi.com
Research Domain of This Article
Biology
Article-Type of This Article
Editorial
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Oncol. Dec 10, 2015; 6(6): 207-211 Published online Dec 10, 2015. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v6.i6.207
Microenvironment and endocrine resistance in breast cancer: Friend or foe?
Sol Recouvreux, Rocío Sampayo, María Inés Díaz Bessone, Marina Simian
Sol Recouvreux, Rocío Sampayo, María Inés Díaz Bessone, Marina Simian, Instituto de Oncología “Angel H. Roffo”, San Martín 5481, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Marina Simian, Escuela de Humanidades and Instituto de Nanosistemas, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, San Martín 1650, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Author contributions: Recouvreux S, Sampayo R and Díaz Besson MI contributed to the ideas and editing of the manuscript; Simian M wrote the editorial.
Supported by The Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva, No. PICT2008-0325; and by CONICET.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Marina Simian, PhD, Conicet Independent Researcher, CEDESI, Escuela de Humanidades and Instituto de Nanosistemas, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, 25 de mayo y Francia, San Martín 1650, Buenos Aires, Argentina. marina.simian@galuzzi.com
Telephone: +54-911-53856555 Fax: +54-11-40061500
Received: May 27, 2015 Peer-review started: May 28, 2015 First decision: August 4, 2015 Revised: September 7, 2015 Accepted: October 12, 2015 Article in press: October 13, 2015 Published online: December 10, 2015 Processing time: 196 Days and 18.5 Hours
Abstract
Breast cancer affects one in eight women around the world. Seventy five percent of these patients have tumors that are estrogen receptor positive and as a consequence receive endocrine therapy. However, about one third eventually develop resistance and cancer reappears. In the last decade our vision of cancer has evolved to consider it more of a tissue-related disease than a cell-centered one. This editorial argues that we are only starting to understand the role the tumor microenvironment plays in therapy resistance in breast cancer. The development of new therapeutic strategies that target the microenvironment will come when we clearly understand this extremely complicated scenario. As such, and as a scientific community, we have extremely challenging work ahead. We share our views regarding these matters.
Core tip: Resistance to endocrine therapy in breast cancer is an important clinical problem that requires further insight to develop a solution. We here discuss a paradigm shift, where the interplay of the tumor cells with the microenvironment, and the role of cancer stem cells are discussed as key targets in the development of novel therapeutic strategies.
