Could gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogs be helpful in the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer?

Abstract

Aim: Treatment of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) imposes great challenges, due to a lack of molecular targets. While use of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogs has been validated in ER-positive breast cancer, this option has not been investigated in TNBC, even though a significant portion of these tumors upregulate GnRH receptors. We performed a meta-analysis of the literature to evaluate the effect of GnRH analogs in TNBC. Methods: Four studies were included in this study. Results: We detected a non-significant improvement in overall survival with GnRH analogs, while progression-free survival was unchanged. Discussion: The majority of the trials evaluated in this analysis were designed to test efficacy of GnRH analogs in preventing premature ovarian failure. This may represent a limitation of our study as these trials were not specifically designed to detect differences in survival outcome measures. Conclusion: Our results suggest that GnRH analogs may be useful as a targeted therapy in TNBC. Randomized prospective clinical trials are needed to investigate this hypothesis in the clinic.