A Change in Cell Logistics Helps Cancer Become Resistant

Researchers have uncovered a potential cause of sustained resistance to hormone therapy in the most common form of breast cancer. The majority of breast cancers are hormone receptor positive – these are cancers which have an oestrogen receptor on the surface of the cells. Hormone therapy is an effective treatment, but roughly 40 per cent of women relapse with a form of the disease which proves resistant to available treatments. Scientists found that breast cancers which had become resistant to hormone therapy have a molecular advantage that helps their cells successfully evade hormone therapies, which are the best treatment option currently available for patients with hormone receptor positive (or ER+) cancers. The study, led by researchers at Department of Experimental and Clinical Biomedical Sciences at the University of Florence, Italy, in collaboration with colleagues at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, has shown that breast cancer cells which are resistant to hormone therapy have more of a microRNA molecule called miR-23b-3p.