Research: a new hormonal therapy for ER-PR- BREAST CANCER?

[Lani]

will they start testing for androgen receptors on ER-PR- patients?

World J Surg. 2007 Apr 4; [Epub ahead of print]
A New Hormonal Therapy for Estrogen Receptor-Negative Breast Cancer.

Hardin C,
Pommier R,
Calhoun K,
Muller P,
Jackson T,
Pommier S.
Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of General Surgery, Oregon Health & Science University, 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road, L223A, Portland, Oregon, 97201, USA, pommierr@ohsu.edu.
BACKGROUND: We postulate that the androgen dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) may represent an innovative hormonal treatment for estrogen (ER), progesterone (PR) receptor-negative, but androgen receptor (AR)-positive breast cancers by inhibiting breast cancer cell growth through AR stimulation. METHODS: Three ER,PR-negative breast cancer cell lines (HCC 1137, 1954, and 38), were treated with DHEAS. DHEAS-induced growth was measured by a methylthiotetrazole (MTT) proliferation assay and apoptosis by TUNEL fluorescence. Androgen receptor gene expression levels were determined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (q-RT-PCR). RESULTS: HCC cell lines 1954 and 1937 were positive for AR expression; HCC 38 was weakly positive. MTT analysis showed DHEAS-induced decreases in cell proliferation of 47% in HCC 1937, 27% in HCC 1954, and 0.4% in HCC 38. Ten days of culturing HCC 1954 cells after the removal of DHEAS resulted in a 3.5-fold increase in growth. Continuous treatment for the same duration induced a 2.8-fold decrease in growth. Parallel experiments showed no significant changes in HCC 38 cultures. TUNEL assays showed DHEAS-induced apoptosis fold increases of 2.8 in HCC 1937, 1.9 in HCC 1954, and no significant difference in HCC 38 cultures. Q-RT-PCR of HCC 1954 cells showed a 6-fold DHEAS-induced decrease in AR gene expression at 4 h. Co-treatment with Casodex nullified this effect. CONCLUSIONS: DHEAS inhibited growth of ER,PR-negative, AR-positive breast cancer cells. DHEAS was cytotoxic to these breast cancer cells via the apoptosis pathway. DHEAS may be an effective treatment for a population previously excluded from hormone therapy.
PMID: 17429562 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]