Surprising findings from a team of Dutch doctors and scientists have pinpointed the male hormone testosterone as a possible cause for cancer of the lining of the womb in postmenopausal women.
Up to now the female hormone oestrogen has been suspected as a possible cause. This is the first evidence of a link between testosterone and endometrial cancer.
The as yet unpublished findings were presented today (Wednesday 28 June) at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Bologna, Italy.
The research team, based at several centres in the Netherlands, investigated differences between steroid hormone levels in the blood and steroid hormone levels in the vessels coming directly from the womb, in more than 100 women who had undergone hysterectomy and ovary removal for endometrial cancer or benign gynaecological conditions.
They determined receptor status for the female (oestrogen, progesterone) and male (androgen) hormones in the endometrium of all the patients and measured levels of a range of hormones in the blood vessels of the ovaries and womb and in peripheral veins, comparing the differences in patients with and without cancer.
"The only hormone that was significantly higher in the patients with endometrial cancer was testosterone," said Dr Helen Mertens of the Academic Hospital in Maastricht. "We found no significant differences in pelvic hormone levels for any of the other hormones or for any of the peripheral levels. We saw more expression of oestrogen receptors in the normal endometrial cells than in the malignant cells. In the malignant cells we saw more expression of androgen receptors.
"These new findings of high local pelvic androgen levels and increased endometrial androgen receptor expression suggest that androgens are at least a co-factor in the development of endometrial cancer."
Dr Mertens said that she and her colleagues* were surprised at their result and are now looking to see what cell mechanisms might be responsible for the increase in local androgen levels in endometrial cancer. "If we can establish exactly what is going on at the cellular level, it may lead in the future to new treatments for the disease."
Notes: Programme number: O-198
* The research was a collaboration between the Academic Hospital, Maastricht, the Academic Hospital, Groningen, the Atrium Medical Center, Heerlen and Erasmus University, Rotterdam.
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