While oestrogen is best known as a female sex hormone, men produce it too – albeit in lower amounts. And there’s emerging evidence that oestrogen might be involved in the growth of prostate cancer – particularly fast-growing, aggressive prostate cancers.
As we wrote in February, there are some pretty big gaps in our knowledge about this disease – particularly what causes it, who’s most likely to get it, and, importantly, why some prostate cancers grow much faster than others.
A lot of previous research has focused on ‘androgens’ – male sex hormones like testosterone. And these certainly fuel prostate cancer growth. So prostate cancer is often treated by blocking their action, although tumours frequently become resistant to this treatment.
But there’s a growing stack of circumstantial evidence that oestrogen is also involved.
Posted by Henry Scowcroft 
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