RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: Our purpose was to evaluate potential efficacy of selective estrogen receptor modulators (raloxifene and tamoxifen) to human uterine leiomyoma cells. METHODS: The samples were collected from ten hysterectomized specimen. we evaluated the estrogen-responsive growth of human uterine leiomyoma and normal myometrial cells. The potential efficacy of Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators (SERMs: raloxifene and tamoxifen) to human uterine leiomyoma cells were conducted by MTS, cell count assay and Western-blot. RESULTS: Human uterine leiomyoma and normal myometrial cells that expressed estrogen receptor (ER) showed increases the cell number in the presence of estrogen compared with ER negative uterine leiomyoma cells. Raloxifene and tamoxifen inhibited estrogen-stimulated proliferation of ER-containing human uterine leiomyoma and normal myometrial cells. Raloxifene was more effective in inhibiting estrogen-induced increases of cell number compared with tamoxifen. CONCLUSION: The effect of SERMs on leiomyoma was inhibited the cell proliferation without apoptosis or cell cycle arrest. These data suggest that SERM should be examined as candidate of nonsurgical therapeutic agents for uterine leiomyoma.