What is it about?
Giving birth to a first child before 24 years age decreases the breast cancer (BC) risk by about half during the menopausal years. This decrease is due to breasts exposure to pregnancy hormone, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). This hormone dramatically increases during first nine weeks of pregnancy, followed by rapid decline to low steady levels. The protective effect of hCG can be demonstrated in animal models, human breast cancer cells and in BCs grown in immunodeficient mice. These findings laid a foundation for hCG treatment helping to reduce the BC risk in young women, who are planning to delay their first childbirth into their late 20s and 30 years of age. In addition, hCG treatment can potentially induce BC remission in women who already have the disease.
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Why is it important?
There are no current strategies to decrease the BC risk among increasing number of women across the world, that are waiting longer than ever to have their first child. It is now possible that this risk can be reduced by hCG treatment. However, this realization requires answering many questions, an investment of time and resources and initiation of multinational randomized placebo-controlled phase 1 clinical trials. It is a daunting task, but there are no alternatives. We owe this to an increasing population of young women in our societies, who are delaying the birth of their first child. There are many treatment options for women who already have the BC. They are surgery, chemo, radiation and hormonal therapies or their combination. Since BC is not one disease, multipronged treatment approach could lead to better outcomes. Here where hCG comes in. The study on human BCs implanted in immunodeficient mice, showed that hCG treatment causes their regression. It may be possible to combine hCG with the other therapies for even better outcomes.
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This page is a summary of: Protective Effects of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin Against Breast Cancer: How Can We Use This Information to Prevent/Treat the Disease?, Reproductive Sciences, November 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1933719116676396.
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