new insight into tamoxifen resistance:

KittyKitty, both your links work fine for me, thanks !

*Made all your links hot

--The Mods

One day I wonder if malignancies will be reclassified - or if the field of infectious disease will grow. While reading the article I was reminded of antibiotics. They are wonderful and life saving, but apply too much, too many or for too long, and some people will become resistant and develop even deadlier forms of an infection. The difference, of course, is that TAM is not a live animal and cannot adapt to environments so it makes sense to have a hope of reversing eventual resistance to the drug by influencing the micro RNA proteins, as discussed in the article.

People can switch from hormone positive to negative and back - it happens, and yet not much is said about why. In the "old days" in experimental, advanced-stage settings, they used to treat er-pos. cancer by giving a person massive doses of estrogen. The result initially would be cancer remission, but then it would explode back. As with the overuse of antibiotics, sometimes too much treatment may cause the cancer to become more aggressive and resistant - not less.

I wish I could find where I read about estrogen. I do remember a conversation with an endocrinologist about it, though. I always feel optimistic when researchers discuss this, because it gives me more hope for a cure. Molecular biology --gene mutation sequencing and identification-- is uncovering some important secrets, IMHO. The book "Emperor of All Maladies" explains this very well, again, IMHO.