BREAST CANCER RESEARCH RIGHT NOW! #77: Androgens – MALE Sex Hormones May Have A POSITIVE Effect In Estrogen Receptor-driven Metastatic Breast Cancer!!!!

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog...Every month, I’ll be highlighting breast cancer research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today: A new discovery in breast cancer treatment may use MALE sex hormones!

Androgens, the most recognizable of these hormones is testosterone; might be a possible treatment for breast cancer.

Abnormal estrogen activity is responsible for the majority of breast cancers, so researchers in Australia, after years of on-again, off-again research in using androgens to combat breast cancer, finally began to understand WHAT they were seeing. “…previous studies had produced conflicting evidence on how best to therapeutically target the androgen receptor for treatment of breast cancer, which caused widespread confusion and hampered clinical application.”

Despite numerous failures to use androgens against estrogen-positive breast cancer tumors, researchers found that “androgen receptor activation by natural androgen (or a new androgenic drug) had potent anti-tumour activity in all estrogen receptor positive breast cancers, even those resistant to current standard-of-care treatments. In contrast, androgen receptor inhibitors had no effect.” Because of advances in both breast cancer treatment and a growing understanding of how hormones work in the Human body, this “seminal finding has application beyond the treatment of breast cancer, including breast cancer prevention and treatment of other disorders also driven by estrogen (such as endometriosis and uterine fibroids).”

While promising, this is NOT a ready-to-use treatment at this time. It’s a discovery that will fund research in using androgens in new ways as researchers grow a better and better understanding of how androgens might be used to battle breast cancers in the future.

Resources: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210118113115.htm
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