Estrogen (medication)

This article is about estrogens as medications. For their role as hormones, see Estrogen.

Estrogen (medication)
Drug class
Estradiol, the major estrogen sex hormone in humans and a widely used medication
Class identifiers
UseContraception, menopause, hypogonadism, transgender women, prostate cancer, breast cancer, others
ATC codeG03C
Biological targetEstrogen receptors (ERα, ERβ, mERs (e.g., GPER, others))
External links
MeSHD004967
Legal status
In Wikidata

An estrogen (E) is a type of medication which is used most commonly in hormonal birth control and menopausal hormone therapy, and as part of feminizing hormone therapy for transgender women.[1] They can also be used in the treatment of hormone-sensitive cancers like breast cancer and prostate cancer and for various other indications. Estrogens are used alone or in combination with progestogens.[1] They are available in a wide variety of formulations and for use by many different routes of administration.[1] Examples of estrogens include bioidentical estradiol, natural conjugated estrogens, synthetic steroidal estrogens like ethinylestradiol, and synthetic nonsteroidal estrogens like diethylstilbestrol.[1] Estrogens are one of three types of sex hormone agonists, the others being androgens/anabolic steroids like testosterone and progestogens like progesterone.

Side effects of estrogens include breast tenderness, breast enlargement, headache, nausea, and edema among others.[1] Other side effects of estrogens include an increased risk of blood clots, cardiovascular disease, and, when combined with most progestogens, breast cancer.[1] In men, estrogens can cause breast development, feminization, infertility, low testosterone levels, and sexual dysfunction among others.

Estrogens are agonists of the estrogen receptors, the biological targets of endogenous estrogens like estradiol. They have important effects in many tissues in the body, including in the female reproductive system (uterus, vagina, and ovaries), the breasts, bone, fat, the liver, and the brain among others.[1] Unlike other medications like progestins and anabolic steroids, estrogens do not have other hormonal activities.[1] Estrogens also have antigonadotropic effects and at sufficiently high dosages can strongly suppress sex hormone production.[1] Estrogens mediate their contraceptive effects in combination with progestins by inhibiting ovulation.

Estrogens were first introduced for medical use in the early 1930s. They started to be used in birth control in combination with progestins in the 1950s.[2] A variety of different estrogens have been marketed for clinical use in humans or use in veterinary medicine, although only a handful of these are widely used.[3][4][5][6][7] These medications can be grouped into different types based on origin and chemical structure.[1] Estrogens are available widely throughout the world and are used in most forms of hormonal birth control and in all menopausal hormone therapy regimens.[3][4][6][5][1]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Kuhl H (2005). "Pharmacology of estrogens and progestogens: influence of different routes of administration" (PDF). Climacteric. 8 (Suppl 1): 3–63. doi:10.1080/13697130500148875. PMID 16112947. S2CID 24616324.
  2. ^ Kuhl H (2011). "Pharmacology of Progestogens" (PDF). J Reproduktionsmed Endokrinol. 8 (1): 157–177.
  3. ^ a b "IBM Watson Health Products: Please Login".
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Martindale was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b "List of Estrogens".
  6. ^ a b Index Nominum 2000: International Drug Directory. Taylor & Francis. January 2000. ISBN 978-3-88763-075-1.
  7. ^ J. Elks (14 November 2014). The Dictionary of Drugs: Chemical Data: Chemical Data, Structures and Bibliographies. Springer. ISBN 978-1-4757-2085-3.