Do Patients with Cancer of the Prostate Gland Show Abnormal Metabolism of Therapeutic Doses of the Natural Estrogens?

Abstract

The application of the authors'' procedure for the fractionation and photometric estimation of the urinary estrogens (estradiol, estrone, and estriol), in a small series of cases with and without carcinoma of the prostate, following the admn, of single therapeutic doses of the natural estrogens, reveals that there is no consistent difference in the total estrogen excretion; that presence or absence of the testes appears not to alter the total excretion of estrogens nor the relative distribution of estradiol, estrone, and estriol in the urine; and that the patients with carcinoma of the prostate showed a tendency (6 of 8 cases) to convert exogenous estrone into estriol more readily than did the patients without cancer, of whom 1 out of 5 behaved in this way.