Craig Jordan's Ideas of How Estrogen Can Both Promote Growth Yet Also "Kill" Breast Cancer Cells Or Stop Growth!
I was diagnosed 33 years ago with the a rare form of breast cancer.
But the husband/wife oncology/radiology team over-seeing my care, wanted to treat me like all other breast cancer patients. Even though this pure type of breast cancer had not yet been seen in any U.S. patients before.
Their recommendation was radiation. Then Tamoxifen. For 5 years.
I sleuthed and found two studies on women with these tumor types in the Netherlands. One with 30 women. One with 60 women.
I kept putting in calls to the primary investigators, which meant very odd early morning hours.
No response. For about 2 weeks.
So was going ahead with standard of care treatment.
On radiation day, after I had the grid put on my chest and was waiting for the radiation to begin, on the table, my radiologist got called out.
My phone in my purse rang. Saw it was a European code.
I picked it up.
Lay down on the table.
Talking to this thick accent in the phone.
The MD/PhD on the other line, told me that in the Netherlands, radiation is “never” used for my tumor type.
It is never found by mammogram.
It is only found by palpation (touch).
I had a normal mammogram.
One month later I found a lump in the shower.
This kind scientist said that the radiation causes fibrosis.
Once you have fibrosis, neither you nor your docs will be able to feel a recurrence if it occurs.
With this tumor type that never shows up on mammograms.
I jumped off the table.
The radiologist came in.
I told her what this scientist just said.
As god is my witness, she said, I kid you not, “F… him. You’ll for sure die without radiation.”
But she had never treated this kind of cancer.
His country had.
I put on my clothes.
Thanking god for god’s timing.
I began to question even the Tamoxifen that was supposed to come next.
I’m a DES daughter. With this rare histologic type.
So sleuthed some more.
Reached out to Dr. Craig Jordan.
Dr. Jordan had a lot to do with putting Tamoxifen on the map.
He took it from a failed contraceptive to a breast cancer treatment for ER+ breast cancer.
I was ER+ 99%.
Dr Jordan was amazing. So very kind.
He spent quite a bit of time with me. A terrified stranger. On the phone.
Dr. Jordan, who sadly passed this year, at my exact age, ugh, honestly said that no DES daughter with this type of cancer had ever asked him if Tamoxifen was the next, best to-do step.
He was caring and contemplative.
Dr. Jordan said:
“I’ll research this and get back to you.
“In a week.”
One week later, good to his word, Dr. Jordan called.
He shared,
“I wouldn’t take Tamoxifen if I was you.
“It looks almost exactly like the DES molecule.
“We have no research on this.”
I did what he recommended.
It’s been 33 years since.
I’m still, though, told by any new breast cancer doctors I see, that I made a horrific mistake not taking Tamoxifen.
Kid you not. Again.
Dr. Jordan had long worried about the effects of depriving breast cancer patients of estrogen post breast cancer treatment.
He knew docs are trying to save lives. But may cause many other worse health issues. Women without estrogen suffer horrific worse quality of life. As estrogen’s signals are extremely life-promoting in diverse protective ways.
Dr. Jordan had been working on various pharmaceutical forms of estrogen as replacement for ER+ breast cancer patients. Many specialists in his circle still believe, in many instances, that estrogen fuels cancer.
But not all.
Here is a paper Dr. Jordan co-authored.
In it Dr. Jordan is pondering and discussing how and why estrogen can do both: fuel cancer or actually kill cancer. Eradicate estrogen positive (ER+) breast cancer cells, that is.