Abstract
Excluding cancers of the skin, breast cancer is one of the most common tumors and the second leading cause of cancer-related death among American women. The dependence of the development and progression of breast cancer on the endogenous circulation of sex hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone, has been recognized for several decades. The status of estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) expression in breast cancer tissues has been utilized as a prognostic biomarker to predict response to endocrine therapy. Cancer has been thought of as a disease that is encouraged by disordered genomic alterations and chromosomal aberrances involving genetic polymorphisms, genomic changes, and mutations in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. The ontology of epigenetics has been established recently, and epigenetic alterations are suggested to have a crucial role in carcinogenesis and progression. Epigenetic events associated with carcinogenesis and tumor progression are thought to be involved in the complex mechanism that regulates promoter transcription of genes. The interaction of these events in the repression of transcriptional activity is not yet well clarified. Therefore, it is highly important to further understand the association between epigenetics and hormone receptors in breast cancer in order to sufficiently define the mechanism of breast cancer and develop more effective therapeutics.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Female Sex Hormones and Cancers |
| Publisher | Nova Science Publishers, Inc. |
| Pages | 63-78 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781617286964 |
| State | Published - 2012 |