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Unlike those antihypertensive and antipsychotic pharmaceutical blockbusters, this abortifacient offers relatively low profit potential. Current understanding of mechanism of action of mifepristone and its on\u2010going clinical trials are changing our views on the drug beyond its abortifacient scope. Here we briefly review its metabolism and pharmacokinetic properties including its unique enterohepatic circulation, its mechanisms of actions involving antiprogesterone and antiglucocorticoid, growth inhibition of various cancer cell lines, suppression of invasive and metastatic cancer potential, downregulation of Cdk2, Bcl\u20102, and NF\u2010kappa B, interference of heterotypic cell adhesion to basement membrane, and cell migration. We comprehensively analyze recent results from preclinical and clinical studies using mifepristone as an anticancer drug for breast, meningioma, and gliomas tumors in the central nervous system, prostate cancer, ovarian and endometrial cancer, and gastric adenocarcinoma. Although mifepristone has more benefits for global public health than we originally thought, its effect as a postmetastatic chemotherapeutic agent is limited. Nonetheless, owing to its unique safe, metabolism and other pharmacological properties, metapristone (the primary metabolite of mifepristone) may have potential for cancer metastatic chemoprevention.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1002\/med.21311","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2014,3,3]],"date-time":"2014-03-03T09:30:58Z","timestamp":1393839058000},"page":"979-1000","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":74,"title":["The Unique Pharmacological Characteristics of Mifepristone (RU486): From Terminating Pregnancy to Preventing Cancer Metastasis"],"prefix":"10.1002","volume":"34","author":[{"given":"Jianzhong","family":"Chen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Cancer Metastasis Alert and Prevention Center College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Fuzhou University Fuzhou 350002 China"},{"name":"School of Pharmacy Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine Fuzhou 350108 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Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Fuzhou University Fuzhou 350002 China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Suhong","family":"Yu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Cancer Metastasis Alert and Prevention Center College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Fuzhou University Fuzhou 350002 China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Zhenhua","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Clinical Oncology Fujian Province Hospital Fuzhou 350004 China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Lee","family":"Jia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Cancer Metastasis Alert and Prevention Center College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Fuzhou University Fuzhou 350002 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