Anti-estrogen Drugs Slow Lung Tumor Growth

Cancer researchers have found that a combination of drugs that prevent the functioning of estrogen receptors on the surface of nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells was more effective in slowing or stopping tumor growth than either of the drugs alone.

Investigators at the University of Pittsburgh (PA, USA) studied the effects of gefitnib, which attaches to epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFRs) and thereby blocks the attachment of EGF and the activation of tyrosine kinase; and fulvestrant, which is an estrogen-receptor antagonist with no agonist effects that down-regulates the estrogen receptor.

They found that treatment with both drugs resulted in a tumor volume decrease of 59%, compared to a 49% decrease for gefitinib treatment alone and a 32% decrease for fulvestrant treatment alone. The cells comprising lung tumors treated with both drugs were mostly dead or dying, while the number of fatally injured cells in the single treatment groups was significantly lower. These results were published in two papers in the February 15, 2005, issue of Cancer Research.

"Our studies continue to show that lung cancer cells grow in response to estrogen and that stopping or slowing the spread of the disease may be dependent on blocking the action of estrogen,” said senior author Dr. Jill Siegfried, professor of pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh. "Both of these studies clearly suggest that lung cancer cells respond to estrogen and that improving overall patient survival may be contingent upon identifying therapies that target specific pathways and put a halt to estrogen signaling.”




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