{"entity":{"id":"diethylstilbestrol","kind":"drug","name":"Diethylstilbestrol","aka":["DES","Stilboestrol","Honvan (fosfestrol)"],"tldr":"Diethylstilbestrol was the first hormonal treatment for prostate cancer, standard from the 1940s, and was also given for breast cancer, before its cardiovascular harms and the cancers it caused in the daughters of women who took it in pregnancy ended its use.","summary":"Charles Huggins showed in 1941 that oestrogen or castration made prostate cancer regress, work that earned the 1966 Nobel Prize, and diethylstilbestrol became the standard hormonal therapy for advanced prostate cancer for four decades. It was also a palliative treatment for postmenopausal breast cancer. The Veterans Administration trials of the 1960s showed that the standard dose caused excess cardiovascular deaths, and its use in pregnancy was linked in 1971 to clear cell adenocarcinoma of the vagina in exposed daughters, the first transplacental carcinogen identified in humans. GnRH agonists and antiandrogens replaced it; low-dose or transdermal oestrogen is still studied in castration-resistant disease.","status":"historic","asOf":"2026-09-08","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethylstilbestrol","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethylstilbestrol"},{"label":"ChEMBL CHEMBL411","url":"https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/explore/compound/CHEMBL411"}],"tags":["gap-fill","chembl-universe"],"related":[],"cancers":["prostate","breast-hr-positive"],"sections":[],"technologies":["endocrine-therapy"],"targets":["estrogen-receptor"],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"notes":[],"brand":"Stilbestrol","modality":"Oral small-molecule synthetic oestrogen","mechanism":"A non-steroidal oestrogen receptor agonist; in men it suppresses pituitary gonadotrophins and so testosterone, a chemical castration.","approvals":[],"mechanismSteps":[],"toxicity":[],"access":[],"regulatoryEvents":[]},"route":"/drugs/diethylstilbestrol/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"breast-hr-positive","kind":"cancer","name":"HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer","route":"/cancers/breast-hr-positive/"},{"id":"prostate","kind":"cancer","name":"Prostate cancer","route":"/cancers/prostate/"}],"technology":[{"id":"endocrine-therapy","kind":"technology","name":"Endocrine therapy (SERMs, AIs, SERDs)","route":"/technologies/endocrine-therapy/"}],"target":[{"id":"estrogen-receptor","kind":"target","name":"Estrogen receptor (ERα)","route":"/targets/estrogen-receptor/"}]}}