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Progestins, Progesterone Receptors, and Breast Cancer

  • Chapter
Hormones and Cancer

Part of the book series: Hormones in Health and Disease ((HHD))

Abstract

Endocrine therapy used either prophylactically or therapeutically for the treatment of locally advanced or metastatic breast cancers offers many advantages to patients whose tumors contain functional estrogen (ER) and progesterone (PR) receptors (Horwitz et al., 1975). The range of treatments defined as endocrine include surgical ablation of endocrine glands, adminis¬tration of pharmacologic doses of steroid hormones, chemical blockade of steroid hormone biosynthesis, and inhibition of endogenous steroid hormone action at the tumor with synthetic antagonists. The last of these approaches is the most widely used, making the antiestrogen tamoxifen the preferred first- line therapeutic agent for treatment of hormone-dependent metastatic breast cancer. The widespread use of tamoxifen reflects its efficacy and low toxicity, and the fact that it makes good physiological sense to block the local proliferative effects of estrogens directly at the breast. But are estrogens the only hormones with a proliferative impact on the breast and on breast cancers? This chapter focuses on evidence that progesterone also has proliferative actions in the breast; on preliminary data showing that progesterone antagonists may be new tools for the management of metastatic breast cancer; and on recent data suggesting that antiprogestin-occupied PRs have novel mechanisms of action that bear on tissue specificity and development of hormone resistance.

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Authors
  1. Kathryn B. Horwitz
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  2. Lin Tung
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  3. Glenn S. Takimoto
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Louisiana State University Medical Center, 1901 Perdido Street, 70112-1393, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Wayne V. Vedeckis

  2. Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center, 1901 Perdido Street, 70112-1393, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Wayne V. Vedeckis

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© 1996 Birkhäuser Boston

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Horwitz, K.B., Tung, L., Takimoto, G.S. (1996). Progestins, Progesterone Receptors, and Breast Cancer. In: Vedeckis, W.V. (eds) Hormones and Cancer. Hormones in Health and Disease. Birkhäuser Boston. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4266-6_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4266-6_10

  • Publisher Name: Birkhäuser Boston

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-8715-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-4266-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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