EGF Receptor in Breast Cancer Chemoresistance

Acquisition of resistance of breast cancer to chemotherapy is commonly associated with progression of the disease to increased metastatic spread. Although early studies on this problem examined the possible roles of chemotherapy drug metabolism and efflux by resistant breast cancer cells, more recent work has implicated aberrant growth factor receptor and signal transduction pathways in the process for such commonly used drugs as the anthracyclines. Cell mutability, DNA repair defects, and loss of DNA damage checkpoint controls certainly must play key roles in the ability of cancer cells to evolve such resistance mechanisms.1,2