Aromatase Inhibitors (AIs) treat postmenopausal estrogen receptor positive tumours, which constitute the majority of breast cancer patients. This comprehensive volume brings together the current knowledge from different relevant areas, including molecular mechanisms and translational aspects of drug resistance in AIs. Topics covered include research, experimental , and clinical data specifically focused on AI resistance in breast cancer. The volume will include three sections. The first section covers general knowledge about aromatase inhibitors, including regulation of aromatase genes, and structure and function of aromatase protein. The second section provides the detailed mechanisms of resistance to AIs, while the third section explores prediction of resistance and potential strategies to overcome resistance. Breast cancer is the most common female cancer and AIs significantly improve treatments outcomes compatibly to previously used endocrine treatments. However 10-15% of post-operative patients develop a relapse during adjuvant treatment with AIs; about 25-50% of the patients do not respond to AIs in neo-adjuvant or metastatic setting, and the majority of metastatic patients who initially respond develop resistance within 3 years. There is an important need to understand these mechanisms of resistance in order to develop methods of preventing or overcoming the resistance to AIs, which will ensure a more successful outcome in treating breast cancer.

Pharmacogenetics is becoming increasingly relevant in the diagnosis, treatment, and recovery of cancer patients. A major problem facing oncologists is the outstanding varied efficacy of treatment. Promising advances in pharmacogenetics have allowed the development of effective agents which will enable personalized cancer chemotherapy to become rout

Cancer is the leading cause of death in most countries and its consequences result in huge economic, social and psychological burden. Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer type and the leading cause of cancer death among females. In this book, we discussed various aspects of breast cancer carcinogenesis from clinics to its hormone-based as well as genetic-based etiologies for this deadly cancer. We hope that this book will contribute to the development of novel diagnostic as well as therapeutic approaches.

Leading experts summarize and synthesize the latest discoveries concerning the changes that occur in tumor cells as they develop resistance to anticancer drugs, and suggest new approaches to preventing and overcoming it. The authors review physiological resistance based upon tumor architecture, cellular resistance based on drug transport, epigenetic changes that neutralize or bypass drug cytotoxicity, and genetic changes that alter drug target molecules by decreasing or eliminating drug binding and efficacy. Highlights include new insights into resistance to antiangiogenic therapies, oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes in therapeutic resistance, cancer stem cells, and the development of more effective therapies. There are also new findings on tumor immune escape mechanisms, gene amplification in drug resistance, the molecular determinants of multidrug resistance, and resistance to taxanes and Herceptin.

The discovery of ER by Dr. Elwood Jensen exactly 60 years ago has not only led to the birth of a whole new vital nuclear receptor research field but also made a rapid, direct and lasting impact on the treatment and prevention of breast cancer. Since that landmark discovery, tremendous progress has been made in our understanding of the molecular functions of ER and development of targeted therapies against ER pathways for breast cancer treatment. However, there is currently no book available addressing these discoveries and recent advancement in a historical and systematic fashion. This book is intended to provide comprehensive, most up-to-date information on the history and recent advancement of ER and breast cancer by world renowned leaders in the field. These chapters include the history of the discovery of ER; physiological and pathological roles of ER; recent discovery of ER cistrome, transcriptome and its regulation of noncoding RNAs such as microRNAs and enhancer RNAs in breast cancer; development and clinical practices of the first targeted therapy Tamoxifen and other antiestrogens for breast cancer treatment; structural basis of ER and antiestrogen actions; molecular insights into endocrine resistance; the role of ER mutants, ER-beta and environmental estrogens in breast cancer; and emerging state-of-the-art therapeutic approaches currently in development to overcome treatment resistance and future perspectives. The book will provide undergraduate and graduate students, basic scientists and clinical cancer researchers, residents, fellows, as well as clinicians, oncology educators and the general public a thorough and authoritative review of these exciting topics.

Breast Cancer: New Insights for the Healthcare Professional / 2012 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Breast Cancer. The editors have built Breast Cancer: New Insights for the Healthcare Professional / 2012 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Breast Cancer in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Breast Cancer: New Insights for the Healthcare Professional / 2012 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

This book provides the first comprehensive overview on the different aromatase inhibitors. Whereas the first aromatase inhibitors to be used therapeutically could be shown to produce drug-induced inhibition of the enzyme and therapeutic benefits in patients with breast cancer, they were not very potent and lacked specificity. However, second-generation drugs were developed and most recently third-generation inhibitors have evolved which possess remarkable specificity and potency.

​This volume comprehensively covers recent prrogress in breast cancer research. In an effort to successfully treat breast cancer, it is imperative to a) fully understand the disease with all its heterogeneity, b) understand the factors that influence the metastasis of breast cancer to distant organs making it lethal and c) understand the underlying processes that lead to the phenomenon of drug-resistance making the disease particularly incurable. The book explores all of these issues, including the phenomenon of epithelial-mesenchymal-transition, cancer stem cells as well as microRNAs in an attempt to better understand the disease in connection to its heterogeneity/metastasis/drug-resistance as well as to propose novel signaling pathways for therapeutic intervention. The profiling of tumors to molecularly classify breast cancers is also investigated so that customized targeted therapies can be developed. ​