Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide and despite improved treatment strategies, it persists as the second leading cause of death of women globally. Overall prognosis drops drastically once the cancer has metastasized, which is also associated with resistance to therapy. The evolution from a localized breast cancer to metastatic disease is complex and multifactorial. Metabolic reprogramming is a pre-requisite for this transition. In this graphical review, we provide an overview of altered metabolic pathways observed in metastatic breast cancer (mBC) and detail how metabolite biomarkers could serve as a novel class of precision medicine tools to improve the diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of mBC.

乳腺癌是全球女性最常见的癌症，尽管治疗策略有所改进，但它仍然是全球女性死亡的第二大原因。一旦癌症转移，总体预后就会急剧下降，这也与对治疗的抵抗力有关。从局部乳腺癌到转移性疾病的演变是复杂和多因素的。代谢重编程是这种转变的先决条件。在这篇图表综述中，我们概述了在转移性乳腺癌 (mBC) 中观察到的代谢途径改变，并详细说明了代谢物生物标志物如何作为一种新型精准医学工具来改善 mBC 的诊断、监测和治疗。