fulvestrant

Fulvestrant is a drug treatment of hormone receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer in post-menopausal women with disease progression following anti-estrogen therapy. It is an estrogen receptor antagonist with no agonist effects, which works both by down-regulating and by degrading the estrogen receptor. Fulvestrant competitively and reversibly binds to estrogen receptors present in cancer cells and achieves its anti-estrogen effects through two separate mechanisms. First, fulvestrant binds to the receptors and downregulates them so that estrogen is no longer able to bind to these receptors. Second, fulvestrant degrades the estrogen receptors to which it is bound. Both of these mechanisms inhibit the growth of tamoxifen-resistant as well as estrogen-sensitive human breast cancer cell lines. Fulvestrant is used for the treatment of hormone receptor positive metastatic breast cancer in postmenopausal women with disease progression following anti-estrogen therapy. Fulvestrant is marketed under the trade name Faslodex, by AstraZeneca. — NCATS