Abstract
Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is the most lethal variant of locally advanced breast cancer. Although recognized as a distinct clinical entity, there have been few advances in the development of pre-clinical models of IBC, and a lack of IBC-specific therapeutic targets translated into clinical utility to increase overall survival, which is currently 40 % at three years. By use of newly developed pre-clinical models of IBC and patient tumor tissues, E-cadherin, anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), and HSP90 have been identified as targets relevant to IBC that are matched by therapeutics that are either currently in clinical trials or will be tested in clinical trials within the next year. These exciting results illustrate the advances that have been made in recent years in defining the molecular basis of IBC as a distinct disease and the significant strides made in identifying more effective strategies for treatment of patients with IBC.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 264-270 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Current Breast Cancer Reports |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2012 |
Funding
Acknowledgments This paper was supported by the American Airlines-Komen for the Cure Foundation Promise Grant KGO81287 (F.M. Robertson and M. Cristofanilli).
Keywords
- ALK
- Anaplastic lymphoma kinase
- Cancer stem cells
- Clinical trials
- E-cadherin
- HSP90
- IBC
- Inflammatory breast cancer
- LABC
- Locally advanced breast cancer
- Therapeutic targets
- Tumor emboli
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Oncology
