Advanced endometrial cancer has a median survival rate of less than a year. Contreras and colleagues have developed a mouse model of endometrial cancer, in which the tumor suppressor Lkb1 is deleted in the endometrial epithelium, causing 100% penetrance of aggressive, invasive endometrial tumors. These tumors shrink significantly with rapamycin treatment. Rapamycin analogs are used with varying success in the treatment of human tumors, and this study suggests that analysis of the tumor’s LKB1 status may provide a sensitive indicator of responsiveness to rapamycin-based therapy.
