The Significance of Proteomic Biomarkers in Male Breast Cancer

Breast cancer in men (MBC) is an uncommon malignancy and accounts for only 1% of all diagnosed breast cancers. By using genomic and transcriptomic approaches, researchers have been able to expand our insight into the genetic basis of breast cancer, by providing new biomarkers. We currently know that gene analysis by itself does not show the complete picture. Along with the genomic approach, proteomics are crucial for the improvement of breast cancer diagnosis, sub-classification, for predicting response to different treatment modalities and for predicting prognosis. There are great challenges in identifying discriminatory proteins and the use of specific techniques along with additional analytical tools is required. A number of techniques allow testing for proteins produced during specific diseases. In this review, an effort is made to summarize the studies and results linked to the implementation of proteomics in the field of MBC detection and diagnosis.