For the first time in 20 years, another class of drugs—aromatase inhibitors— is challenging tamoxifen as the treatment of choice for postmenopausal women with early breast cancer. However, the higher cost of at least one of the aromatase inhibitors and the lack of a statistically significant advantage in breast cancer survival give some researchers pause in wholeheartedly endorsing the drugs. F...

Aromatase represents an important target for the treatment of hormone-dependent breast cancer. In the present study, nine alkaloids from the dichloromethane extract of Corydalis yanhusuo were identified by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and tested for their aromatase binding activities using an ultrafiltration LC-MS method by investigating the differences of peak area...

More than two-thirds of breast cancers occur in post-menopausal women, and depend on the estrogens for their proliferation and survival. For the treatment of estrogen-dependent breast cancers, two major treatment options are now available. One is selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) such as Tamoxifen and another is aromatase inhibitor such as Anastrozole, Letrozole and Exemestane, which...

Cytochrome P450 aromatase (aromatase), a product of the CYP19 gene, catalyzes the synthesis of estrogens from androgens. Given the significance of estrogen synthesis in hormone-dependent breast carcinogenesis, it is important to elucidate the mechanisms that regulate CYP19 expression. The main objective of this study was to define the interrelationship between HER-2/neu, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2...

INTRODUCTION Young women with endometrial intraepithelial hyperplasia or low-grade endometrial carcinoma are potential candidates for conservative fertility sparing therapy utilizing progesterone rather than hysterectomy. High-dose progesterone treatment is associated with 55-80% initial response but high relapse rates. Using aromatase inhibitors in conjunction with high-dose progesterone has l...

MCF-7 cells transfected with human placental aromatase gene (MCF-7Ca cells) or cells transfected with plasmid vector only (MCF-7Cc cells) were inoculated into nude mice with Matrigel. Tumors formed from both MCF-7Ca and MCF-7Cc cells grew faster in intact mice than in ovariectomized mice, suggesting that the tumors maintained their responsiveness to estrogen stimulation and that their growth wa...

Antiestrogens and aromatase inhibitors are important drugs in the treatment of estrogen-dependent breast cancer. To investigate the effects of these drugs on gene expression in breast cancer cells, we treated estrogen receptor-positive MCF-7 cells stably transfected with the aromatase gene (known as MCF-7aro cells) with testosterone, 17 beta-estradiol, two aromatase inhibitors (letrozole and an...