Electro-endocrine combination therapy for aggressive breast tumors

Obesity is an epidemic in the US and an established risk factor for breast cancer incidence and morbidity. In obese patients breast cancer is commonly more aggressive and associated with poor prognosis. The goal of our research is to develop safe and efficient novel therapies to treat aggressive breast tumors, like those in obese patients. To enhance drug uptake we intend to develop electro-endocrine therapy, an electrically mediated hormone (endocrine) delivery system. In this study, we optimize parameters for electrical pulses and tamoxifen (anti-hormone drug) dosages in an in vitro model of breast cancer, as these parameters vary for each cell type. For this purpose, MCF-7 human breast adenocarcinoma cells were used. Results of our experiments show that treatment of electroporation combined with tamoxifen has an enhanced effect on suppressing tumor cell growth compared to tamoxifen treatment alone. The long-term goal is to translate application of this method to clinical practice.