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Publisher Summary This chapter discusses steroid metabolism in human breast cancer. The major advance in the treatment of breast cancer has been the introduction of adrenalectomy, designed to remove all possible sources of estrogen upon which growth and development of a proportion of tumors depends. Recent advances in the understanding of steroid involvement in breast cancer have depended to a considerable extent on technical progress of gas–liquid chromatography, the commercial availability of radioactive steroids, and sthe ensitive means for their detection and measurement by liquid scintillation spectrometry. Dehydro-epiandrosterone sulfate is a major product of the human adrenal gland secreted in quantities similar to that of cortisol itself and that its concentration in plasma is an order of magnitude greater than that of the C21-steroids. Thus, the adrenal is ultimately the source of the bulk of urinary 11-deoxy-17-oxosteroids; aetiocholanolone being a major proportion of this fraction. Human breast tissue is capable of transforming blood-borne C19 -steroids to recognised-hormonally active compounds, such as testosterone and estrone. The metabolites of C19 -steroids known to have activity in other tissues, particularly in the prostate, have been shown to feature in human breast tissue. |
