Has Anyone Here Used Estrogen as Part of Metastatic Treatment?

Interesting. Thanks for sharing it. Definitely something I will ask my onc about in the future.

A couple of abstracts have been posted about this. There haven't been any big studies, but apparently 1/3 of women respond to estrogen after the anti-hormonals have failed. The small studies have shown about the same number.

There are several theories about why it might work. The one that makes the most sense to me is that each cancer cell grows a zillion estrogen receptors because it's so starved of estrogen. Then when you provide estrogen the cells can't handle it an explode. [I heard this explanation from Lisa Carey of UNC]

My onc hasn't suggested it to me but I'm thinking of asking.

As ShetlandPony mentioned, our Longtermsurvivor used estradiol as one her therapies.

Below from my MBC Guide is detailed information about it.

• Estrogen: Counterintuitive as it may appear, estrogen can be administered once hormonal therapy resistance has developed in postmenopausal, hormone receptor positive patients.

• Estrogen as MBC Therapy and as a Hormonal Therapy Re-Sensitizer: When estrogen-lowering drugs no longer control metastatic breast cancer, the opposite strategy might work even though it appears counter-intuitive.According to a 2009 study of 66 MBC patients whose hormonal therapy failed and who were facing chemotherapy, raising estrogen levels benefited 30% of these women.Not only did estrogen treatment often stop disease progression, in some patients metastatic tumors became "re-sensitized" and again responded to anti-estrogen treatments.

The study compared a high 30mg daily dose of estrogen to a low 6mg daily dose, and 30% of patients both groups experienced a clinical benefit: their tumors either shrank or stopped growing. Researchers demonstrated that they could predict fairly accurately which patients would have this positive response. They conducted PET scans before estrogen treatment and 24 hours later. If metastatic tumors flared, or glowed more brightly, in the PET scans after estrogen was started, they were much more likely to be affected by estrogen therapy. From: http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/14457.aspx

• Estrogen and Estrogen Withdrawal as a Long-Term MBC Therapy:Some patients responding and then progressing on high dose estrogen therapy may then respond to estrogen withdrawal. Occasionally MBC can be controlled for many years by initiating and then sequencing high dose estrogen with estrogen withdrawal over time. One MBC patient with bone metastasis had their disease controlled for over 8 years by alternating cycles of high-dose estrogen with estrogen withdrawal 3 separate times.From: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3656649