Role of sex steroid receptors in pathobiology of hepatocellular carcinoma

Table 6 Clinical outcome of hormonal therapeutic trials in HCC patients

Receptor protein/mRNA expression	Clinical parameter	Treatment	n	Country	Salient Findings	Yr	Reference
ER protein	Tumor growth	Progestin	5	United States	Tumor regression in 2	1982	[30]
NA	Anti-tumor response	Tamoxifen 20 mg twice daily	33	United States	No complete or partial antitumor response	1990	[73]
	Survival time				Long term survival (18+ to 39+ mo) in 4 patients
NA	Anti-tumoral effect	Tamoxifen 20 mg daily	120 (placebo = 62)	Spain	No-antitumor effect	1995	[74]
	Survival time				No significant differences in survival rate of placebo and treated groups
Wild type and variant ER mRNA	Tumor size and growth rate	Tamoxifen 80 mg daily or Megestrol 160 mg daily	8	Italy	Growth rate 4 times higher in tumors expression variant ER than wild type ERs. Tumor regression to half size in patients with wild type ER following tamoxifen treatment. Megestrol slowed down tumor growth in tumors with variant ERs	1996	[54]
ER protein	Mortality rates	Tamoxifen	119 (placebo = 58)	China	No difference in 1 mo mortality rates and median survival in treated and control groups	2000	[75]
	Survival				No effect of ER expression on survival
Variant ER mRNA	Tumor growth, survival	Megestrol 160 mg daily	24 placebo, 21 treated	Italy	Significantly slowed down tumor growth and improved survival in treated patients than placebo group	2001	[76]
NA	Survival rates	Tamoxifen 120 mg daily or 60 mg daily	329	Singapore	No positive effect on survival and increasingly negative impact with increasing doses	2005	[77]

NA: Information not available.