European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

In spite of developments in breast tumors management therapeutic approaches, relapsing, metastasis and resisitant are highly observed among the patients, consequently, reduced overall survival. previously, considerable attention has been placed on the intrinsic subtyping depended in the existence or absence of traditional immunohistochemistry (IHC) markers for example estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor-related protein (HER2). However, it is extensively understood that cancers are consisted of heterogeneous populations of cells with a hierarchical organization established by cancer stem cells (CSCs). In breast cancers, this CSCs displaying stem cell characteristics is identified as breast CSCs (BCSCs). This small population display a CD44+/CD24−/low phenotype with high ALDH activity (ALDH+ ), and owns advanced tolerability to chemotherapy, other cancer therapeutic approaches and has the capability of tumor bulk reproduction after reduction of cell populations sensitive to first-line therapy which leads to cancer recurrence. In this review, we present special consideration to BCSCs with future guidelines in the creation of a targeted therapy for this population.