Estrogen Not Just For Women - It's Implicated In Male Prostate Cancer Also
While estrogen is typically thought of as a "female" hormone, men produce it as well. Researchers say they have pinpointed estrogen as a key player in about half of all prostate cancers. The findings are published in the May 27 online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Mark A. Rubin, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and vice chair for experimental pathology at Weill Cornell Medical College, conducted the study while at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and in collaboration with Dr. Todd Golub and other members of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, in Cambridge, Mass. first discovered and described the common fusions between the TMPRSS2 and ETS family member genes subset of prostate cancer in the journal Science in 2005. "The discovery showed that these malignancies occur after an androgen (male hormone)-dependent gene fuses with an oncogene -- a type of gene that causes cancer," he explains. read more
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