Screening breast cancer patients for the prolactin receptor could improve the prognosis for patients and help avoid unnecessary and invasive treatments, according to new research that examined the prognostic and therapeutic role of the proclactin receptor and its signaling pathway in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC).
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Using a database of 580 women with TNBC, researchers from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) found that survival was prolonged in patients who expressed the prolactin receptor and that the prolactin hormone was able to reduce the aggressive behavior of cancer cells. It does so by decreasing their ability to divide and form new tumors, explained researchers in their study published in Scientific Reports.
TNBC represents an enormous clinical challenge due to its aggressive nature, heterogeneity, and lack of targeted therapy. “While prognosis and treatment options for breast cancer patients as a whole have improved in recent decades, this is not true for women who develop TNBC—they still have limited options for targeted treatment strategies, often require invasive chemotherapy and have a poor prognosis,” said Suhad Ali, PhD, a researcher from the Cancer Research Program at the RI-MUHC and lead author of the study, in a statement.
The study showed that woman with tumors who express the prolactin receptor had less aggressive breast cancer and far better prognosis. Additionally, in a preclinical animal model, they determined that if the prolactin receptor was not present, the tumor cells were not just more aggressive, but also proliferative and invasive compared with the ones that express the prolactin receptor.
“The results suggest that screening for the prolactin receptor could indicate which patients might benefit from prolactin treatment as a single agent, or in combination with less aggressive chemotherapy,” said Dr Ali. “We think this could be a revolutionary path to developing new treatments for breast cancer.”
