[Breast cancer and polypeptide growth factors]

Growth factors are crucially involved in the growth of breast cancer cells and in disease progression, both as mediators of endocrine therapy, as co-factors in the development of hormonal resistance, and as regulators of the extracellular proteolysis that precedes invasion and metastasis. Better characterisation and understanding of the mechanisms of action of the various growth factors might open up new possibilities in therapeutic intervention. Thus it would be possible to include in future research the development of synthetic agonists to the inhibitory growth factors, inhibitors of the stimulatory growth factors, and the development of receptor antagonists to block the binding of stimulatory growth factors to their receptors.