Alpelisib: a novel PI3K inhibitor for the treatment of breast cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer is a common malignancy that causes people to die easily, especially for women. HR-positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative breast cancers occur in more than 70% of patients, who have a driver mutant kinase catalytic subunit alpha (PIK3CA) in the phosphatidylinositol 4, 5-diphosphate 3-kinase gene, resulting in impaired phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) and in 40% of cases, loss of cell growth. However, drug resistance remains a problem in the early stages of endocrine therapy in these patients. And a promising new approach to overcome resistance to autologous treatment in breast cancer is the inhibition of PI3K. Alpelisib is a selection PI3K inhibitor for HR-positive, HER2-negative, PIK3CA patients - with mutant breast cancer that has advanced on autologous treatment. FDA approved alpelisib in 2019 which was produced by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation. It is recommended to take this drug with fulvestrant which is also an estrogen receptor antago-nist that slows the growth of breast cancer. Although alpelisib is an effective drug for the treatment of breast cancer, some adverse reactions may happen, such as stomatitis, nausea, diarrhe, dermatitis, and so on. Sometimes it also causes skin reactions, such as SIS, TEN, EM. Thus, when these serious adverse reactions happen, dosage should be reduced. As a result, some recommendations are provided for patients, and they must follow the instructions in or-der to live a more pleasant life. In this article, the working mechanism, structure, characteris-tics, clinical studies of alpelisib were reviewed and its comparison with other drugs was also provided for reference.