ecancermedicalscience

Special Issue

The past and future of breast cancer treatment—from the papyrus to individualised treatment approaches

8 Jun 2017
Felipe Ades, Konstantinos Tryfonidis, Dimitrios Zardavas

Cancer is one of the oldest diseases ever described, since ancient Egypt there have always been attempts to treat and cure this illness. The growing body of knowledge about breast cancer biology and improvements in surgical and medical treatments has been built over time with contributions from many talented and enthusiastic physicians and researchers. Medical advances have changed the approach from a previously incurable condition, into a surgical disease. Further improvements in cancer biology have allowed the development of systemic treatments, hormonal therapies, and targeted drugs. The description of the molecular intrinsic subtypes of breast cancer clarified the understanding of breast cancer as a group of heterogeneous diseases, associated with different clinical outcomes, and therapeutic opportunities. This paper reviews how breast cancer treatment has improved since the earliest descriptions, in ancient times, and how future approaches, such as gene signatures, molecular profiling, and liquid biopsies, aim to further develop individualised treatments and improve treatment outcomes.

Related Articles

Prajwal Dhakal, Christopher S Wichman, Shailesh Simkhada, Bunny J Pozehl, Radowan Elnair, Amulya Yellala, Kalika Mahato, Vijaya Raj Bhatt
Prasoon Mishra, Rahat Hadi, Ajeet Kumar Gandhi, Madhup Rastogi, Rohini Khurana, Ashish Singhal, Surendra Prasad Mishra, Anoop Srivastava, Avinav Bharati, Ashish Chandra Agarwal, Avinash Poojari, Vachaspati Kumar Mishra, Raunaq Puri, Akanksha Manral, Vikas Gupta, Bhoopendra Pratap Vishwaranjan, Saumyta Mishra
Shivani Sable, Tabassum Wadasadawala, Myvizhi Kannan, Rajiv Sarin, Rima Pathak, Revathy Krishnamurthy, Seema Gulia, Shalaka Joshi, Palak Popat, Tanuja Shet
Navjot Kaur, Pritam Halder, Yuvaraj Krishnamoorthy, Gursimer Jeet, Garima Bhatt, Sathish Rajaa, Priyanka Sudhir, Rohit Sharma, Sarthak Tandon, Manish Gupta
María Valeria Jiménez-Báez, Sofía Concepción Thomas-Gómez, Gabriel González-Guerrero, David Rojano-Mejía, Eduardo Patricio Achurra-Godinez