Abstract
Since 1896, when Sir George Beatson demonstrated that ovariectomy caused regression of mammary tumours in women, the key aim of endocrine breast cancer therapy has been to deprive the body of estrogen (BEATSON 1896). Ovariectomy accomplishes this by removing the gland that is the predominant source of estrogens in pre-menopausal women. Thus, estrogen deprivation is an effective therapy for breast cancer. It was only over half a century later that the mechanism of this therapy began to be explained. The elegant studies of JENSEN and his collaborators (1982) demonstrated that estrogen action was mediated by the estrogen receptor (ER). Binding of estrogen to ERs stimulated growth, and the attenuation of activity in this signal pathway led to estrogen deprivation and growth inhibition, thus explaining the therapeutic effects that BEATSON reported following ovariectomy. The knowledge generated through the years following Jensen’s first report on the ER can be visualised in Fig. 1.
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Bhatnagar, A.S., Miller, W.R. (1999). Pharmacology of Inhibitors of Estrogen Biosynthesis. In: Estrogens and Antiestrogens II. Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, vol 135 / 2. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60107-1_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60107-1_12
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