Oh, this one has been tossed around here for years...... so, I did a little digging.... there has been talk in the medical community about AN's and Estrogen receptors. Now, I just did an online search and found these 2 studies that have been done in the past few years.... btw, note Dr. Wiet's name affiliated with the 2nd one.... he's such a nice man!
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Phyl
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Out of Toronto:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2637072/?tool=pubmedABSTRACTObjectives: To determine if a relationship exists between the presence of estrogen receptors (ER), progesterone receptors (PR), or vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and the size, growth rate, and behavior of vestibular schwannoma tumors. Design: Nine tumor samples from young female patients with large vestibular schwannoma tumors were preselected because they were presumed to be faster growing, more aggressive tumors. Immunohistochemical staining was performed using monoclonal mouse antibodies to ER, PR, and VEGF. Results: The mean age of the study sample was 32.3 years, mean tumor size was 3.2 cm, and the average growth rate was 0.4 cm per 2 months. The results of immunohistochemical staining for ER and PR in all nine samples were unequivocally negative. Eight of nine tumor samples stained positive for VEGF, with five demonstrating low intensity and three demonstrating moderate intensity staining.
Conclusions: There is histopathological evidence for the expression of VEGF in vestibular schwannomas but not for ER and PR. Further studies are necessary to determine the role of VEGF and other molecular pathways in the growth of vestibular schwannomas and the application of anti-VEGF therapy as a potential treatment option in the future.http://archotol.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/116/2/202Estrogen and Progesterone Receptors in Acoustic Neuromas Leif Klinken, MD, PhD; Jens Thomsen, MD, PhD; Birgitte Bruun Rasmussen, MD, PhD; Richard J. Wiet, MD; Mirko Tos, MD, PhD
Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 1990;116(2):202-204. Abstract • Acoustic neuromas are more frequent, larger, and more vascular in women, and their growth rate increases during pregnancy. Estrogen receptors were claimed to be demonstrated in these neoplasms for the first time in 1981. Since then, numerous diverging studies, using various biochemical and histochemical methods, have been published on the contents of estrogen and progesterone receptors in acoustic neuromas. We determined the content of estrogen and progesterone receptors by means of an immunohistochemical method, using monoclonal antibodies, which has proved to be reliable, reasonably sensitive, and clinically relevant in other tissues, especially in breast carcinomas.
No estrogen or progesterone receptors could be found in 18 consecutive acoustic neuromas from 7 men and 11 women, ranging in age from 26 to 73 years. The results do not support preoperative hormone treatment of acoustic neuromas.