The Role of Ghrelin Signals in Breast Cancer- A Systematic Review

Charikleia      Stefanaki; Filippos-Paschalis      Rorris; Michael      Stamatakos

doi:10.2174/157436212802481547

Abstract

Breast cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among women in the United States, alone. Many papers throughout the past and current medical literature have shown it is strongly associated with the reproductive axis and the growth hormone axis. Ghrelin is a pleiotropic 28-aminoacidic hormone and an integrated component of the GH axis, which is implicated in breast cancer risk factors. There has never been published a systematic review about ghrelin, its receptor and gene and their relation to breast cancer till this day, to our knowledge. The main goal of this systematic review is to explore the aforementioned relationship in perspective to new therapeutic targets. A systematic review of relevant studies by searching the PubMed and the SciVerse Scopus databases was performed retrieving four (4) experimental studies, three (3) cohort and one (1) case-control study, which were included in the present systematic review, out of 63 papers. Ghrelin is definitely an auspicious candidate molecule for breast cancer prevention, detection and therapy. Future studies should be encouraged to investigate ghrelin axis on breast cancer pathogenesis and/or tumorigenesis, which hopefully would give results in difficult breast cancer cases, such as in reproductive females.

Keywords: Ghrelin, breast cancer, novel therapeutic targets, hormonal levels, pathophysiologic mechanisms, 28-aminoacidic hormone, mammography, progesterone, oestrogen, pathogenesis