Relevance of the Concept of Oncogene Addiction to Hormonal Carcinogenesis and Molecular Targeting in Cancer Prevention and Therapy

The topic of this Symposium “Hormonal Carcinogenesis” is highly relevant to human cancer since in the USA and Western Europe, breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer in women and prostate cancer (PC) is the most common cancer in men. Indeed, BC and PC account for about one-third of the total cancer incidence in women and men, respectively (1). Furthermore, although a few decades ago the incidence and mortality of BC and PC were relatively low in Asian countries, in recent years both of these cancers are becoming more frequent in Japan, Korea, Singapore, and urban China (2–4). The latter findings coupled with migration studies demonstrating an increase in BC and PC in Japanese living in Hawaii and the United States clearly indicate that exogenous factors play a major role in the causation of BC and PC. Therefore, in principle, it should be possible to prevent a major fraction of these cancers by identifying and modifying the various exogenous causative factors. Presumably, the recent increased incidence of BC and PC in Asian countries reflects “westernization”, but the specific factors have not been identified. This is an important and challenging task if we want to interrupt this literal epidemic of breast and prostate cancer in Asian countries.