March 4, 2003

James L. Wittliff, PhD, MD

Classes of estrogens and estrogen mimics include not only the naturally occurring hormone produced by mammals and the naturally occurring phytoestrogens in plants and fungi, but also synthetic hormone-antagonists and their metabolites used in cancer therapies and reproductive medicine.

Accumulating medical evidence suggests major roles for estrogens in a wide variety of human diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, breast carcinoma and osteoporosis. In addition, environmental pollutants and other man-made compounds suspected to be hormone mimics are now known to interfere with the synthesis, transport, binding, action or elimination of natural hormones in the body that are responsible for the maintenance of homeostasis, reproduction, development and/or behavior.

On the other hand, before the discovery of the estrogen receptor as a predictive indicator of hormone responsive cancer, only one of four women with breast cancer who were treated with either administrative hormone therapy or surgical ablation responded to treatment. With the development of estrogen receptor-specific treatment and receptor positivity as a treatment guide, however, considerable improvement in breast cancer treatment was demonstrated in the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast & Bowel Project.

Join us as Dr. James Wittliff of the University of Louisville’s Brown Cancer Center explores the complex world of ESTROGENS AND ESTROGEN MIMICS. Dr. Wittliff will be live online at 1:00–2:00 pm Eastern time on Tuesday, March 4 to answer your questions on this fascinating topic.