TY - JOUR
T1 - Pregnancy-associated breast cancer and metastasis
AU - Schedin, Pepper
N1 - Funding Information:
The author would like to thank Tim E. Byers and Peter Henson for critical and insightful review of the manuscript, Grethe Albrektsen for providing access to her pregnancy-associated breast cancer cohort data and for lively discussions, and Yan-Gao Man for his generous contribution of the human DCIS micrographs shown in figure 4. This work was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute. This manuscript is dedicated to the memory of Greer Page, whose battle with pregnancy-associated breast cancer inspired these studies.
PY - 2006/4
Y1 - 2006/4
N2 - Pregnancy-associated breast cancer, which has a poor prognosis, is often overlooked by clinicians and researchers alike. With the trend towards delayed child-bearing, an increase in the occurrence of breast cancer complicated by pregnancy is anticipated. The mechanisms that have been proposed to account for this poor prognosis, including increased hormone exposure, might not contribute significantly to the observed increase in metastasis seen in these patients. Instead, the mammary microenvironment might become tumour-promoting after pregnancy because of the remodelling of the mammary gland to its pre-pregnant state. This remodelling, which is associated with pro-inflammatory and wound-healing mechanisms, is proposed to support tumour-cell dissemination. This hypothesis will be discussed.
AB - Pregnancy-associated breast cancer, which has a poor prognosis, is often overlooked by clinicians and researchers alike. With the trend towards delayed child-bearing, an increase in the occurrence of breast cancer complicated by pregnancy is anticipated. The mechanisms that have been proposed to account for this poor prognosis, including increased hormone exposure, might not contribute significantly to the observed increase in metastasis seen in these patients. Instead, the mammary microenvironment might become tumour-promoting after pregnancy because of the remodelling of the mammary gland to its pre-pregnant state. This remodelling, which is associated with pro-inflammatory and wound-healing mechanisms, is proposed to support tumour-cell dissemination. This hypothesis will be discussed.
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U2 - 10.1038/nrc1839
DO - 10.1038/nrc1839
M3 - Review article
C2 - 16557280
AN - SCOPUS:33645322443
SN - 1474-175X
VL - 6
SP - 281
EP - 291
JO - Nature Reviews Cancer
JF - Nature Reviews Cancer
IS - 4
ER -