In a study published in the Journal of the American medical Assn (JAMA) on August 19, 2009 researchers at Washington School of Medicine confirmed previous known kinowledge that estrogen can be used to treat metastatic hormone-dependent breast cancer in postmenopausal women. In their study Dr Matthew Ellis and colleagues studied 66 women with advanced stages of breast cancer and were being treated with Pfizer’s Aromasin, Novartis’s Femara, and AstraZeneca Pic’s Arimidex which are all new drugs for breast cancer. They had all experienced a relapse while on estrogen-lowering drugs, and their disease was progressing so they were faced with undergoing chemotherapy. The researchers found that estrogen treatment in the form of estradiol stopped the progression of the disease in many women and was much better tolerated than chemotherapy would have been.
Estradiol was given in both high and low doses and 30% showed signs of improvement. They found that giving low doses showed better recovery compared to high doses and there were fewer negative side effects. They concluded that low does of estrogen may help cure certain types of breast cancer and more research is planned.
More information is available in the August 19, Vol 302, No 7 issue of JAMA.
Tags: breast cancer, estrogen therapy