Hormonal resistance in breast- and prostate cancer

Breast and prostate cancers are the most common malignant disease in female and male world population, respectively. Both of these tumors are predominantly hormonal-dependent, what is rationale for the widely used endocrine treatment, with specific approach in each of them. Although endocrine treatment is obviously effective and responsible for prolonged progression-free survival and even survival, the problem is that breast and prostate cancers inevitably become "hormone-resistant". The paradigm of treatment has to be changed and today there are some ways to overcome these lack of endocrine responsivness. It is known better today which mechanisms are involved in hormone-resistance, and they are numerous, so the designation of new drugs with key features necessary activity in hormone-resistant tumors. In breast cancer, there are selective estrogen modulators as a way to overcome this problem; there is also a combination of receptor-tyrosine kinase and hormonal treatment documented as active in such cases. On the other hand, abirateron-acetat and enzalutamide as a new androgen-receptor-signalling inhibitors proved that androgen signalling cascade is still active even in a castration-resistant prostate cancer.