A comparative study has been made of the steroid excretion pattern of normal postmenopausal women, obese diabetics and patients operated on for endometrial cancer. I n estimating estrogens, a new gas chromatographic method has been used. Statistical analysis showed that cancer patients excreted less etiocholanolone relative to 17-OHCS or to estrogens (mainly estriol) than the healthy controls. The possible significance of this finding is discussed i n view of the investigations by Bulbrook et al.12 concerning cancer of the breast.
WO TYPES OF CARCINOMA IN THE FEMALE
T may be causally related to disturbed hormonal control mechanisms, viz., breast cancer and cancer of the endometrium. Although some experimental evidence suggests that large doses of estrogens may favor the genesis of these malignancies under certain circumstances,lO, 19 no convincing clinical evidence is available to support the high-estrogen hypothesis in man.
In fact, recent studies in Britain129 18 have shown than many patients with early cancer of the breast exhibit not a high excretion of estrogens but a low excretion of some steroids derived from androgen metabolism, in particular etiocholanolone.
T h e Bulbrook group have expressed a belief that these findings reflect an adrenocortical abnormality in mammary cancer patients. Because we had investigated some clinical and