腎細胞癌(renal cell carcinoma; RCC)在成人中是一種最常見的腎臟癌症，大約佔所有癌症的百分之三，且初期患者的診斷在全球均呈現增加之趨勢。事實上，從治療第一期至第三期別的患者得知，其仍有約50％複發的可能性，種種因素顯示著RCC治療尚存著極大的發展空間。近年來許多研究指出，性荷爾蒙存在時，具有抑制癌細胞及加成各種抗癌藥物作用的保護機制。因此我們將雌二醇，加上抗癌藥物 (paclitaxel) 分別處理表現雌二醇接受器的及抑制雌二醇接受器的RCC ACHN細胞株，並利用CCK-8進行分析，觀察細胞株相對生長率是否明顯改變。結果顯示，雌性素中的雌二醇明顯加乘抗癌藥物的效果，使癌細胞相對生長率顯著下降。此研究成果未來對RCC抗癌藥物與合併性荷爾蒙治療，應具參考價值，甚或近一步研發成為臨床佐劑，改善RCC之臨床預後。

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC), the most common type of kidney cancer in adults, is responsible for about 3% of all cancers and is increasingly diagnosed at early stages worldwide. Actually, with treatment of the first to third stages, there is still about a 50% likelihood of recurrence. This indicates that RCC therapies still have a ways to go. Many studies indicated that sex hormones play a protective role in cancer inhibition and have synergistic effects with anticancer drugs. We treated RCC ACHN cells with estrogen (i.e., 17β-estradiol) coupled with a chemotherapeutic agent (paclitaxel) to observe whether the relative growth rate significantly changed. The combined effects of paclitaxel and estradiol were detected in RCC ACHN cells in the absence and presence of estrogen-receptor (ER)1 expression. Proliferation rates were analyzed using a Cell Counting Kit-8. Herein, we revealed that the growth rate of RCC ACHN cells greatly changed after treatment with a chemotherapeutic agent coupled with a sex hormone. In conclusion, we propose that the combined therapy of chemotherapeutic reagents and sex hormones can contribute to better prognoses in RCC patients.