Studies on prostatic cancer. I. The effect of castration, of estrogen and androgen injection on serum phosphatases in metastatic carcinoma of the prostate.

Carcinoma of the prostate gland is peculiarly favorable for endocrine investigation since frequent serial observations of the activity of phosphatases in serum were found to provide objective indices of activity of the neoplasm when the enzymes were increased in amount above normal. In the present paper data are given for the values of serum phosphatases in carcinoma of the prostate and in normal men. We shall demonstrate that the acid phosphatase of serum is reduced in metastatic carcinoma of the prostate by decreasing the activity of androgens through castration or estrogenic injections and that this enzyme is increased by injecting androgens. We have been unable to find previous observations indicating any relationship of hormones to carcinoma of the prostate gland.