ABSTRACT
Introduction Sex hormones are thought to be involved in the genesis of several frequently occurring malignant tumors in humans: breast and endometrial cancer in women and prostate cancer in men. Initially, such a relation was based on observations – by Beatson in 1896 for breast cancer and by Huggins in 1941 for prostate cancer – that existing cancers regressed after removal of the gonads. The additional basic pathophysiological argument was that hormones and related growth factors, which stimulate the growth of the epithelial cells in these tissues and have mitogenic properties, can increase the cancer risk:
■ Without previous hormonal stimulation of these organs, cancer does not occur as demonstrated by the absence of prostate cancer in eunuchs.
