Combination therapy for incurable metastatic breast cancer to circumvent therapy resistance

Scientists discovered how resistance mechanisms arise during the treatment of incurable metastatic breast cancer and suggest strategies to circumvent these by a combination therapy. Triple-negative breast cancers are the bad guys among the different types of breast cancer. They affect younger women, metastasize more easily, are tougher to treat and once treated become therapy resistant faster. They are triple-negative because they lack the three alterations that usually cause breast cancer: up-regulation of the receptors for estrogen and progesterone, and activation of the oncogene HER2/Neu. The absence of these alterations is a hallmark of triple-negative breast cancers. However, what truly happens at the molecular level in these tumor cells is still unclear. Therefore a better mechanistic understanding of the tumor biology is direly needed to improve the treatment options for these patients.