Estrogen receptor: A paradigm for targeted therapy

Nearly two-thirds of breast cancers overexpress estrogen receptors, and endocrine therapy is considered the backbone of systemic therapy both in early and advanced settings. While this is now widely recognized in clinical practice, this is the culmination of outstanding contribution of many investigators and patients. Indubitably, estrogen receptor targeting has had the most impact among targeted therapies and has significantly affected patient survival. In this commentary, we revisit a landmark article published in Cancer Research in 1977 by Knight and colleagues, which laid the groundwork for the use of estrogen receptors in prognostication and adjuvant treatment selection, as well as some of the key breakthroughs in estrogen receptor biology that span more than a century.