The Role Of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Signaling Pathway In Endocrine Therapy To Estrogen-dependent Breast Cancer

The endocrine therapy to breast cancer had been begun from ovariectomy by Beatson in 1896. It had made great development after estrogen receptor (ER) discovered in the last century 60 decades, Tamoxifen (TAM) made in the last century 70 decades, and the third generation aromatase inhibitor developed and applied in recently. Endocrine therapy has now become an important therapeutic tool to breast cancer. EBCTCG (Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group), by summarizing the data, discovered that the application of TAM can raise the survival rate of breast cancer patients, depress the recurrences and mortality of them. NSABP-P1 clinical trail discovered that TAM can drop the incidence of breast cancer in the high-risk group. On the clinical, only 50% of ER (+) breast cancer patients can get benefit from TAM therapy. Some of those patients can still develop in future to TAM-resistance. So anti-endocrine therapy is an important problem. Therefore, various mechanisms participate together in TAM-resistance. Recently researches showed that EGFR signaling transduction pathway may also participate in TAM-resistance.EGFR family includes four distinct members. That is EGFR/Her-1, C-erbB-2/HER-2, C-erbB-3/HER-3 and C-erbB-4/HER-4. EGFR is a 170 kD,...