They find a possible key against breast cancer in male hormones

A group of international scientists discovered new evidence on the positive impact of androgens - male sex hormones - in the treatment of breast cancer, a finding that may represent an advance in the treatment of this disease, academic sources reported this Friday.

"This work has immediate implications for women with estrogen receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer, including those who are resistant to current forms of endocrine therapy," Theresa Hickey, a researcher at the University of Adelaide, said in a statement. of the research leaders.

Although androgens are the male sex hormones, they are also found at low levels in women, so scientists focused on analyzing their role as a possible treatment for some types of breast cancer in which the disease spreads using estrogens. , female hormones, through cell receptors.

Androgens - which encompass several types of male hormones, such as testosterone - stimulate the development of male secondary sexual characteristics such as a beard, while estrogens induce the appearance of female secondary sexual characteristics, such as breasts and the first menstruation.

Under normal conditions, estrogen stimulates and androgen inhibits breast growth from puberty to adulthood, but abnormal activity of the former causes most malignant breast tumors.

In the past, androgens were used to treat breast cancer without much being known about their impact on the receptors, but they were ignored due to their virilizing side effects and the appearance of antiestrogenic or endocrine treatments.

While endrocrine therapy is key to treating estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer (that is, it uses estrogen to spread), the resistance of some patients to these drugs is the main cause of mortality from this disease, according to the notice.

It is in these patients, with positive estrogen receptors, in which the use of natural androgens or a new androgenic drug has been shown to have powerful antitumor activity, even in those resistant to current standard treatments.

On the other hand, androgen receptor inhibitors had no effect, according to this study published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine.

"We have provided compelling new experimental evidence that androgen receptor-stimulating drugs may be more effective than existing standard treatments (e.g., Tamoxifen)," said Wayne Tilley of the University of Adelaide, who led the study. the study with Hickey.

The scientist also stressed that they appear to be better than new treatments such as Palbociclib, with which they can also be combined to improve growth inhibition, and do not produce the side effects of natural androgens, according to the statement from the University of Adelaide.

Australian and US scientists plan to begin an international Phase 3 clinical trial in the second quarter of 2021 that will evaluate the impact of Enobosarm, an androgen receptor activating agent.

These trials will involve patients with androgen and estrogen receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer who have failed endocrine treatment.