Role of cytokines and growth factors in promoting the local recurrence of breast cancer

The pathogenesis of local recurrence in breast cancer is not well understood. Breast-conserving surgery is particularly prone to local recurrence as it leaves behind breast tissue that may harbour occult cancer, and lends itself to enhanced intraoperative shedding of cancer cells due to narrower resection margins and transection of lymphatic channels. A review of clinical breast cancer studies as well as experimental research strongly suggests that these persisting cancerous cells are unlikely to develop into clinically evident disease if their environment remains unstimulated. However, an inordinately high local recurrence rate occurs at the surgical scar, and such recurrence must be triggered by the release of growth factors and cytokines into the healing wound. These factors can stimulate any available cancer cells which express the proper growth factor receptors. Perioperative strategies to neutralize this tumour cell-growth factor interaction should maximize local control.