Plasma steroid transport in subjects with tumors of hormonal target organs: a review.

Tumors derived from a hormonal target organ are assumed to be stimulated by the same hormone that stimulates the normal target tissue. In spite of attempts to acquire direct indications of a correlation between hormones and cancer, none have been definitive because studies of total and free hormone levels have given contradictory results. For this reason, attention has shifted to the study of plasma binding and transport of hormones, that is, of the proteins responsible for modulation of the hormone effect and thus of hormone bioavailability.

Breast carcinoma and skeletal formation.

We have studied skeletal structure in 67 women with breast carcinoma and in 59 women without breast carcinoma, looking for differences of development that might be correlated with hormonal, metabolic or genetic abnormalities. We have measured the lengths of the limbs and of their segments (upper arm, forearm, thigh, leg), of the bisacromial and bitrochanteric transverse diameters and total height and height divided into the parts from vertex to pubis and from pubis to the ground. The analysis showed statistically significant coefficients of regression with presence of mammary carcinoma for height (0.

[Prospectives of the study of seminal fluid in the diagnosis of infertility].

Biochemical components usually evaluated in seminal plasma are lower than those in blood serum. In this study the concentration of different constituents in seminal plasma has been analyzed: creatinine, urea, glucose, uric acid, sodium, potassium, triglycerides, cholesterol, bilirubin, alkaline phosphatase, glutamic oxalacetic transaminase (SGOT), glutamic pyruvate transaminase (SGPT), cholinesterase, creatin phospho chinase (CPK), gamma glutamyl transpeptidase, lactic dehydrogenase (LDH), proteins, in comparison with the concentrations of the same constituents in blood. With the exception of uric acid, all the biochemical components in the seminal plasma were either significantly higher or lower than in blood serum, an index of the complexity of the mechanism regulating the presence and distribution of the single components in seminal plasma compared with blood serum.

Plasma sex hormone binding globulin in patients with prostatic carcinoma.

The concentrations of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) were measured in the plasma of 56 men, who were 47 to 85 years of age, by time-resolved immunofluorometric assay with a monoclonal antibody. Twenty-five of the men had untreated carcinoma of the prostate and 17 had untreated prostatic hyperplasia. There were 14 healthy control subjects.

Breast carcinoma and plasma 17-beta-estradiol binding.

The data relating to plasma steroid binding and transport (usually measured with dehydrotestosterone) are controversial. The plasma E2 binding of 79 breast carcinoma patients, 19 premenopausal and 60 postmenopausal, were compared to 46 controls, 21 premenopausal and 25 postmenopausal. In this study the authors removed the endogenous steroids with charcoal, incubated the plasma with 17-beta-E2 in non-saturation conditions, and used ammonium sulfate to precipitate the complex.