Anastrazole Essay

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Anastrazole, also known as Anastrozole, is a drug indicated in the treatment of breast cancer in post-menopausal women.1 It is a new generation oral once-daily aromatase inhibitor. Since 1980, doctors recommended to take tamoxifen to prevent breast cancer in women. However, recently, between Feb 2, 2003, and Jan 31, 2012, the doctors had an experiment with 3864 post-menopausal women.2 The result was successful. Anastrazole reduced the risk of breast cancer in post-menopausal women. The experiment proved that anastrazole actually has fewer serious side effects than tamoxifen. After this experiment, anastrazole is used in therapies for treating and preventing cancer. It is also used to women who already took tamoxifen before. Anastrazole is sold to people by the name of Arimidex. The safety labeling changes of anastrazole are approved By FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) on December 2008.3
Chemistry
Figure from source3
Anastrazole is used for preventing breast cancer and this fact can be easily understood by looking at the chemistry of the drug. Anastrazole is considered as an aromatase inhibitor. It inhibits the enzyme aromatase, which is responsible for converting androgens (produced by women in the adrenal glands) to estrogens.1 Anastrazole is not a steroid, but it is considered as a hormonal treatment. The IUPAC name for anastrazole (C17H19N5) is 2-[3-(2-cyanopropan-2-yl)-5-(1,2,4-triazol-1-ylmethyl) phenyl]-2-methylpropanenitrile.1 The molecular weight of anastrazole is 293.36626 g/mol and the melting point is 130.14 °C. It is a form of white powder. The structure of the drug shows how it works in human body. The metabolism of anastrazole is mainly by N-dealkylation, hydroxylation, and glucuronidation to ina...

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... hormone levels, and suppress the serum estradiol levels.8 After this process the man will gain normal fertility and spermatogenesis back.
According to the study, no matter the man is in obesity or not, the study still showed that anastrazole was effective to normalize the fertility. Aromatase enzyme converts testosterone to estradiol. Because anastrazole is an aromatase inhibitor, it suppresses the conversion of testosterone to estradiol. Since estradiol gets lower, the rate of testosterone increases and it maintains the normal testosterone. The off-label use of aromatase inhibitors to decrease peripheral conversion of testosterone to estradiol provides a unique method of manipulating the normal regulatory mechanisms of the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis to promote endogenous normalization of testosterone levels and to enhance spermatogenesis and fertility.8

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