Abstract
Breast cancer is the common malignant related disease of Women worldwide. In clinic, molecular classification of the disease is a key to setup therapeutic strategy for patients. To date, few reports describe the molecular basis of the disease, survival rate and therapeutic strategies that applied to encounter breast cancer in the Arab population. Nevertheless, advancement of medical research varied among Arab nations. This study reviews published data of breast cancer in the Arab World and integrate the available data to propose a model that describes the common molecular features of breast cancer in the Arab population. In conclusion, almost all of Arab nations share an early onset of breast cancer. Grade I cases accounted for ≤10% of the total cases, while grade III cases accounted for ≥40% of the total diagnosed cases. In general, breast tumor poor differentiation is associated with decrease in estrogen receptor (ER) and B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl2) expression and an increase of protein 53 (p53) protein expression. Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/neu) expression is varied, yet it is associated with poor differentiation. Most importantly ER expression level is relatively lower compared to the reported ER expression level in breast cancer cases detected in Western countries. This could be due to the fact that the majority of breast cancer cases detected in Arab population were grade II or III of cancer progression. The dominance of advanced form of the disease with early age of onset urge to screen samples to identify biomarkers associated with breast cancer onset in Arab population. In deed; identifying new biomarkers responsible of early onset of the disease might advance our understanding of disease progression and/ or discover new molecular therapeutic targets.
Citation Information: Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2011;20(10 Suppl):B64.