Some effects of hormone therapy and castration on the hypophysis in men with carcinoma of the prostate

Pituitary tropic hormone studies and morphologic observations in carcinoma of the prostate

“…Sonie previous morphologic studies do suggest that carcinoma of the prostate in itself may be accompanied by an unusual degree of adrenal cortical hyperplasiaa and hyperfunction. 10 While no conclusions can be drawn from an isolated case, the failure t'o demonstrate stored gonadotropins or ACTH in the man receiving TACE is also of interest, since this synthetic estrogen produces neither a hypophyseal nor adrenal hyperplasia in laboratory animals exhibiting these phenomena in response to other estrogens.14 Previous cell counts of the hypophysis of a woman receiving '];ACE for palliation of carcinoma of the breast have also showed a very low percentage of sparsely granulated cells (5.5% as opposed to 5.7% in the present study) but no bioassay was performed on this patient. 2 The lower values for storecl ACTH found in the 3 patients receiving adrenal corticoids are in accord with previous observations.4~ 9 However, stored ACTH did not disappear completely from thcse hypophyses, as did gonadotropins from the glands of many men receiving estrogens.…”

Pituitary Weight and the Histology of the Prostate in Elderly Men

“…Previous studies ( Mellgren 1945, Moore 1947, Hart1 1949, Russfield & Byrnes 1958 have failed to demonstrate abnormal pituitary weight in patients with advanced stages of BNH of the prostate; the reasons may be several: In these studies pituitaries from patients with prostates of ,,normal size" were used as controls and some of the data were obviously collected from autopsy file records. I t has previously been shown that prostates showing ,,normal size and weight" often harbour foci of carcinoma and hyperplasia (Harbitz & Haugen 1972) and thus, normality should be based on thorough histological examination.…”

Pathology of Human and Experimental Pituitary Tumours

“…Signs of endocrine over-activity, such as acromegaly, Cushing's syndrome, or thyrotoxicosis may occur with chromophobe adenoma, occasionally with concomitant hypopituitarism. Many of the so-called chromophobe cells are, in fact, weakly basophilic and have been described as 'amphophilic'; they are regarded as the probable source of thyrotrophic hormone (Russfield 1958). Some patients may have other functioning endocrine tumours, most commonly parathyroid or islet cell adenoma, as well as a pituitary adenoma (Underdahl et al 1953).…”