Breast Cancer and Flavonoids as Treatment Strategy

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer type among women. Despite recent progress in early detection and therapeutic strategies, the rate of mortality is increasing. Antiestrogens or aromatase inhibitors are preferred to treat the women diagnosed with estrogen-receptor (ER) positive tumors. However, breast tumors usually show intra-tumoral heterogeneity with ER-positive and -negative cells. The advanced breast cancer cells lose the estrogen responsiveness and become aggressive by developing new strategies for rapid proliferation such as mutations in cell cycle machinery. New promising drugs are still being investigating against these types of tumors especially to overcome acquired resistance against chemotherapeutic drugs; however, a successful treatment for metastatic tumors is still unclear. Flavonoids, with various pharmacological activities, are plant or fungus secondary metabolites present in human diet. In plants, beside their role in pigmentation, they may also act as messengers, regulators and cell cycle inhibitors. Therefore, they are being tested in ovarian, cervical as well as breast cancer. Due to the positive correlation between flavonoids-rich diet and lower risk of cancer, flavonoids are referred as chemopreventive agents. The current chapter emphasizes the therapeutic potential of flavonoids and their synthetic analogues as anti-cancer agents in breast cancer providing new insights into the molecular mechanisms.