Prolactin and human breast cancer

Abstract

Hormones and their effects on neoplastic and other tissues have long been a major research interest of my professor, Doctor Zollinger. I suppose it is only natural that my stu.dies of malignant disease would lead to an investigation of the effects of prolactin on breast cancer. The discovery that Ldopa could suppress serum prolactin levels [1 ] and the implications from animal studies that the hormone prolactin plays an important role in the metabolism of breast cancer, at least in DMBA rats [2], prompted a clinical test of the effect of L-dopa on excruciating bone pain from metastatic breast cancer in two women who were serendipitously hospitalized in the same room [3]. One patient had no change in symptoms; the other became dramatically pain-free in several hours. It is interesting to note the previous responses to endocrine manipulation in these two women. The patient who did not respond to L-dopa was forty-six years of age and had had no response to oophorectomy or androgen therapy. The patient who did respond to L-dopa was thirty-seven years old; she had had a two year pain-free interval after oophorectomy and then a six month pain-free period with androgen therapy when the pain recurred after oophorectomy.