CAUTION, some doctors use estrogen patches as a form of first line hormone blockade therapy for the treatment of prostate cancer. However, scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College, New York City have described the hormone estrogen as a potential key negative player in about half of all prostate cancers.
Researchers have found that Estrogen-linked signaling helps drive a discrete and aggressive form of prostate cancer which is caused by a chromosomal translocation, which in turn results in the fusion of two genes. “Fifty percent of prostate cancers harbor this common recurrent gene fusion, and we believe that this confers a more aggressive nature to these tumors,” explains study senior author Dr. Mark A. Rubin, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and vice chair for experimental pathology.
Dr. Rubin suggested that an eventual treatment goal for many prostate cancers would be the interference with this particular gene fusion. He went on to say that, he believed that inhibiting estrogen might be one way to prevent this gene fusion, which would impact many aggressive prostate cancer tumors.
The study findings were published in the May 27 online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Rubin, along with his team is now continuing this line of research.
Some history- Dr. Rubin, along with researchers at the University of Michigan, demonstrated that there is a common fusion between the TMPRSS2 and ETS genes in a large subset of prostate cancer patients. These genetic fusions are characterized as a fusion of an androgen (male hormone)-dependent gene fusing with an oncogene (a type of gene that causes cancer).
Prostate cancer has many genetic pathways through the human body. A traditional hormone blockade