Fernand Labrie

Summary of scientific contributions

An early scientific achievement of Dr Labrie has been the isolation of the first mammalian messenger RNA (rabbit hemoglobin messenger RNA) in 1969 during his postdoctoral formation with Professor Frederick Sanger at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. Following his return at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, in 1969, a major discovery made by Dr Labrie and rapidly transferred to the treatment of patients has been the demonstration that GnRH agonists induce a complete and reversible chemical castration in men. The exceptional efficacy and tolerance of medical castration achieved with GnRH agonists rapidly led to the replacement of orchiectomy and high doses of estrogens for the treatment of prostate cancer worldwide.

This highly successful transfer of fundamental research to the treatment of patients was rapidly followed by the discovery that adding an antiandrogen to castration permits to block the action of the important amount of androgens of adrenal origin made locally in the prostate, thus blocking at the same time both sources of androgens of approximately equal importance and responsible for the stimulation of prostatic tumor growth. This approach called combined androgen blockade was the first treatment demonstrated to prolong life in prostate cancer and has become the standard hormonal therapy worldwide, thus prolonging life for 6 to 12 months on average in men with advanced disease. During the course of these studies, Dr Labrie made the very important discovery that a large proportion of androgens and estrogens are made from dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) in peripheral tissues by the mechanisms of intracrinology.

Dr Labrie and his group then performed the first prospective and randomized clinical trial of prostate cancer screening. This study has permitted to develop and validate a strategy to detect prostate cancer at an early and potentially curable stage in 99% of cases, thus practically eliminating the diagnosis of prostate cancer at the metastatic and non curable stage. While combined androgen blockade is the only treatment able to prolong life in advanced prostate cancer, the same combined androgen blockade applied to localized disease leads to cure of the cancer in at least 90% of cases. The data obtained even suggest that combined androgen blockade could be the most efficient treatment for localized prostate cancer.

Taken together, the available medical knowledge gained to a large extent by the work of Dr Labrie's group, permits to conclude that death from prostate cancer can be practically eliminated if proper diagnosis and proper treatment are used. Dr. Labrie has also developed the most potent antiestrogen yet synthesized in order to treat and prevent breast cancer, the most frequent cancer in women.