Fighting Breast Cancer in Obese Patients

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A group of breast cancer drugs that had been deemed ineffective might be able to help a sub-group of breast cancer patients after all.

Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine discovered through laboratory tests that hormones produced by adipocytes (fat cells) stimulate breast cancer cells to migrate and invade surrounding healthy tissue. A group of drugs called epithelial growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors could block the stimulatory effects of the hormones.

“This group of compounds was basically written off as far as breast cancer goes,” senior author Dipali Sharma, Ph.D., assistant professor of oncology/hematology at Emory University School of Medicine and Emory Winship Cancer Institute, was quoted as saying.

Leptin, the hormone produced by fat calls, is found in abundance in obese people. In addition to leptin, obese people also have high levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1).

“The influence of obesity on breast cancer is more pronounced because most of the breast tissue is made of adipocytes,” Sharma was quoted as saying. “There is an increasing amount of evidence for the importance of the environment surrounding the tumor in spurring its growth.”

Although EGFR inhibitors were not found effective in the fight against breast cancer for a large proportion of patients, but because of the ability of this class of drug to block stimulatory effects of leptin and IGF-1 they may have a positive effect on obese breast cancer patients who have a lot of these hormones being released.

SOURCE: Cancer Research, 2008;68: 9712-9722

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