Endocrine Abstracts

Early detection is essential for curative cancer therapy and for achieving a decrease in cancer mortality. Markers for incipient stages of every type of cancer constitute therefore all oncologists’ dream. We have recently uncovered a new tumor marker, the FSH receptor (FSHR). Compared with the available markers, FSHR is found in a wide array of cancers, including eleven of the most frequent types. We have shown by various methods that FSHR is expressed in >1300 human tumors, in all tumor types examined (colon, prostate, breast, lung, ovary, testis, kidney and others), for all tumor grades and stages examined (Radu et al. N Engl J Med 2010 363 1621–30). FSHR (as protein and mRNA) is present only in the tumor’s endothelial cells, most frequently at the periphery of the tumors. No expression has been noticed at the level of blood vessels in healthy tissues from cancer patients, with the exception of the reproductive organs where it is present in much lower concentrations than in tumors. A mouse tumor model showed that the FSHR is present on the luminal surface of the endothelium in tumors and can internalize ligands delivered in the vasculature.

Based on these results, FSHR appears to be very promising for various applications such as cancer diagnosis, imaging, and therapy. It is also possible that the level of the endothelial FSHR expression could have predictive power regarding the progression of the disease and the efficacy of various therapies, especially those aimed at tumor vasculature. The latter possibility is supported by our recent publication (Siraj et al. J Cell Mol Med 2011. doi:10.1111/j.1582-4934.2011.01495.x.) in which we reported that the level of FSHR expression in the primary kidney tumors could predict the response to subsequent therapy with sunitinib, a drug that it is thought to act by inhibiting tumor angiogenesis.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This work was supported, however funding details are unavailable.