Measurements of prolactin and androgens in patients with prostatic diseases.

Testosterone (T), dihydrostestosterone (DHT) and prolactin (HPr) levels were determined in normal males and females, in patients with benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) and in clinically stable patients with prostatic carcinoma (CAP), intact and orchiectomized. CAP patients were either untreated or on different modalities of therapy. The HPr levels were higher in prostatic cancer patients, in BPH patients, and in subjects on estrogen therapy.

The use of estramustine and prednimustine versus prednimustine alone in advanced metastatic prostatic cancer patients who have received prior irradiation.

Estramustine has been shown previously to be an effective drug in the treatment of metastatic prostatic cancer, demonstrating significant objective and subjective responses in long-term non-randomized trials and in other randomized trials. In this study prednimustine alone has shown a minimal over-all objective response rate of 12.9% of the cases, although with marked subjective improvement of pain relief and patient performance status.

Comparison of procarbazine, imidazole-carboxamide and cyclophosphamide in relapsing patients with advanced carcinoma of the prostate.

In this third cooperative chemotherapy trial of the National Prostatic Cancer Project 165 patients with histologically confirmed, relapsing clinical stage D prostatic cancer were randomized to receive either imidazole-carboxamide, procarbazine or cyclophosphamide. All patients had received and failed previous hormonal therapy. Patients whose disease progressed after 12 weeks on initial therapy were crossed over or randomized to receive an alternate drug.

Two new, direct, and specific methods of acid phosphatase determination. National field trial.

A national study of the new specific assays for prostatic acid phosphatase was conducted by the National Prostatic Cancer Project. The results of the study have confirmed that the counterimmunoelectrophoretic method is easily reproducible, highly specific, and sufficiently sensitive. Based on tests as performed by different institutions, the counterimmunoelectrophoretic (CIEP) method was also shown to have high reproducibility and was found to be of much greater sensitivity than the conventional biochemical methods for the detection of earlier stages of prostatic cancer.

Enzyme activity and distribution in rat prostatic adenocarcinoma.

The activity and distribution of acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, nonspecific esterases, beta-glucuronidase, and aminopeptidase were examined in the transplantable R-3327 rat prostatic adenocarcinoma and compared with those in the four prostatic lobes of the rat. Both the well and poorly differentiated tumor cells in R-3327 carcinoma were characterized by high activities of beta-glucuronidase and aminopeptidase. The poorly differentiated cells had a high alkaline phosphatase activity.