Steroid sulfatase inhibitors: promising new therapy for breast cancer

Manipulation of the hormone oestrogen has been used for decades to treat hormone-dependent breast cancer. currently, aromatase inhibitors (ais) are used as first-line therapy against early and metastatic breast cancer in post-menopausal women. despite these advances, several patients eventually experience a relapse of breast cancer and declined clinical response to treatment. as per recent findings, steroid sulfatase (sts) has emerged as a novel therapy target. this review aims at summarising the emerging field of sts inhibitor development and highlighting current findings from pre-clinical and clinical trials. the recently-developed dual-targeting compounds, such as dual aromatase-sulfatase inhibitors (dasi), have shown encouraging preclinical results and represent important new treatments for hormone-dependent breast cancer