Breast cancer is a very heterogeneous disease at clinical, histological, and
molecular levels. It is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women. Breast
cancer is manageable if diagnosed early at a localized stage, but late diagnosis of
metastatic disease has a very low patient survival rate. Further, limited treatment
options, insufficient prognostic and diagnostic markers, misdiagnosis and drug
resistance pose a greater problem for patient survival and clinical outcome.
Consequently, there is a great need to explore newer and more effective diagnostic,
prognostic and therapeutic options for managing breast cancer. It is now a well-known
fact that along with genetic changes, epigenetic modifications play an important role in
the origin and pathogenesis of breast cancer. Universal involvement of epigenetic
modifications in breast cancer development makes them useful for diagnosis,
prognosis, and follow-up purposes. Further, the reversibility of epigenetic changes
makes them attractive targets for breast cancer therapy. Therefore, in this chapter, we
will discuss current knowledge on epigenetic involvement in the development of breast
cancer and epi drugs as treatment options for breast cancer management.
Keywords: DNA methylation, Epigenetics, Histone deacetylases , Methyltransferases , microRNAs
