Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Renal carcinomas (RCs) are the most common kidney cancers, and their prognosis is affected by many factors; 5-year survival rate is >90% in patients with small tumors confined to the kidney. RC makes up 2-3% of cancers in adults aged between 50 and 70 years; in particular, the incidence in men is higher than women, 66.7 vs 33.3% of the cases, respectively.

Aim: RC incidence is twice as high in men as in women. This difference could suggest that estrogens may play a role in influencing a lower RC incidence in women. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of 17-β-estradiol (E2) on renal cancer cell proliferation in vitro.

Materials and methods: Experiments were performed with the HEK293 cells, a RC cell line, transfected with the pBIND-ERα Vector, containing the gene for the estrogen receptor. Cells were incubated for 48 and 72 hours with increasing E2 concentrations and proliferation was assessed by cell counting.

Results: We found that E2 concentrations in the range 1, 5 - 100 mM (phase 1) were killing the cells, being 1 mM E2 the maximum tolerated concentration, with a reduction in cell viability of 33%. E2 concentrations in the range 1, 5 - 100 μM (phase 2) significantly reduced viable cell number by 20%.

Conclusions: In phase 1, RC cells were exposed to high E2 concentrations, mimicking those of a woman in the peak of childbearing age (15-45 years). Conversely, in phase 2, RC cells were exposed to very low doses, mimicking those of a menopausal woman and/or a man. These results suggest a potential protective role of E2 towards RC.

Disclosure of interest: None declared.