Urinary 17-Ketosteroid Excretion of Women with Advanced Breast Cancer

Abstract

Various steroids were examined in order to study the relationship between the responsiveness to adrenalectomy and urinary steroid excretion of Japanese women with advanced breast cancer. Sixty-one adrenalectomized cases were followed for more than 1 yr after treatment and used in the study. There was a statistically significant difference in urinary 17-ketosteroids between the responsive and unresponsive cases and between the intermediate and unresponsive cases. The mean values and their standard deviations determined preoperatively in the responsive, intermediate and unresponsive cases were 5.86 ±1.36, 4.04 ±1.79 and 2.83 ±0.91 mg/24 hr, respectively. There was also a statistically significant difference between the responsive and unresponsive cases in the excretion of dehydroepiandrosterone, androsterone and etiocholanolone. Many patients with breast cancer had low excretion of ll-deoxy-17-ketosteroids, but the patients who excreted normal amounts of androgenic steroids responded to an ablative therapy of the adrenal gland. The patients who had low excretion of the steroids failed to respond. 11-Deoxy-17-ketosteroid excretion usually decreased with age in normal women and in the responsive patients. However, the unresponsive patients did not show a decrease with age and excreted subnormal quantities of the steroids. The responsive patients excreted significantly higher amounts of dehydroepiandrosterone than normal controls.