Scientists investigating the reason behind the recurrence of breast cancer years after the first treatment have discovered that hormone therapy, which stops the disease from happening again, can alter some cells.
Instead of dying out due to these alterations, the cells “wake up” years later, resulting in a more difficult-to-treat recurrence.
The research, however, revealed that there might be a method to target these “sleeping” breast cancer cells before they “wake up,” providing patients with oestrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer, which accounts for 80% of all breast cancer cases, with fresh hope.
“After surgery to remove primary oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancer, patients are given five to ten years of hormone therapy, which aims to kill any remaining cancer cells,” stated Luca Magnani, professor of epigenetic plasticity at The Institute of Cancer Research, London.
