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Remarkably, estrogen was discovered to be a cancer driver for breast cancer by surgeons in the late 1800’s but it was 5 decades before the relationship of hormones to prostate cancer was discovered. George Beatson had considered performing oophorectomy for women with breast cancer because the procedure was successful in prolonging lactation in cattle. His first patient experienced a complete remission from soft tissue breast ca metastases and lived another 4 years. He later said that he thought this treatment would induce “fatty degeneration” of malignant cells.
The relationship of testosterone as a driver of prostate cancer is credited to Huggins and Hodges, who found that either surgical castration or administration of estrogen to men with prostate cancer could reduce what was then the only known marker of prostate cancer, acid phosphatase. Additionally, if they administered testosterone to these patients, the acid phosphatase would increase. This built on observations that the enzyme was present in the prostate gland and would go up in patients as they developed metastases, usually in the bones. For this work, Huggins was awarded the Nobel prize in 1966. The use of surgical castration or estrogen administration remained the mainstay of treating metastatic prostate cancer until the introduction of leuprolide in the early 1980’s. I had the extraordinary opportunity to participate in those trials, which we published in 1984. We compared leuprolide to DES, an oral form of estrogen that works on the same endocrine axis as leuprolide, causing the pituitary gland signaling hormone, LH to drop, and subsequently the testicles stop making testosterone. Leuprolide worked as well as DES, but oral estrogen is dangerous – leading to blood clots and increased risk for heart attacks or strokes. Thus, leuprolide (and other GnRH analogs…including the recently approved oral GnRH antagonist, relugolix) became the standard for ADT therapy of prostate cancer.
But estrogen still works. In fact, it may have some significant advantages over surgical castration or GnRH therapy. Our team found that DES could still produce meaningful responses in patients with rising PSA’s who had failed GnRH even though we did see blood clots. But, you can also give estrogen via transdermal patches which avoids many of the problems of oral DES. This week, the PATCH trial program in the UK reported the safety results of using estradiol patches (E) to treat prostate cancer patients compared to GnRH agonists. The ability to produce therapeutic (castrate level) testosterone was the same, but the E treated patients had lower cholesterols, lower blood pressure, less diabetic tendencies, and far fewer hot flushes. Previous study analyses have shown that E is better for bone health with no calcium loss. The only thing that was worse was breast enlargement (gynecomastia) which was seen in 86% of E patients compared to 38% in the GnRH agonist patients. To some extent, gynecomastia can be treated by radiating the breast tissue. The efficacy of E in treating the prostate cancer in these patients will be reported in 2023 and 2024. The cost of E treatment (4x .025mg/24h patches every 3.5 days) is about $62/week ($750/3 months) which is definitely less than any of the GnRH agonists or antagonists. It will be terrific if this “old fashioned” treatment can again join the treatment options for men with advanced prostate cancer. I think it would also be reasonable to try in patients who are failing the newer second generation agents before trying the more expensive/complicated/toxic alternatives like taxane chemotherapy or radionuclide agents (Radium 223, Lu177-PSMA, etc.) With PSA monitoring, it should be relatively easy to find patients who benefit from such treatment.
prost8blog 