Prostatic cancer treated by orchiectomy; the five year results.

Five years is a customary period to appraise the results of treatments of cancer, and this time has elapsed since the introduction of the endocrine therapy of prostatic carcinoma. The antiandrogenic treatment consisting of orchiectomy or the administration of estrogen has proved to have both theoretical and practical significance. There has emerged from this study the fact that cancer of the prostate is usually not autonomous, since the neoplasm grows or shrinks when androgens are administered or eliminated. The antiandrogenic measures have a general modality of action and, in a sense, are chemotherapeutic agents although not specific ones; estrogens are the first agents of known chemical constitution (aside from radioactive chemicals) which ameliorate carcinomatosis in man, and they are the only medicines known which, when taken by mouth, influence cancer beneficially. 1 The long time practical benefit will be demonstrated in this paper. NATURAL COURSE OF PROSTATIC CANCER Only in