The urinary excretion of 14 neutral
steroids was measured by gas-liquid chromatography in women with early and advanced
breast cancer, in women with early
uterine cancer, and in healthy women from urban and rural districts. The premenopausal patients with early
breast cancer excreted subnormal amounts of five
steroids (11-hydroxyandrosterone, 11-hydroxyetiocholanolone,
pregnanediol,
pregnanetriol, and
tetrahydrocorticosterone) and increased amounts of
tetrahydrocortisol as compared with the normal subjects of corresponding ages. From our findings, a new parameter was proposed by which a premenopausal
breast-cancer patient was separated from the control. Postmenopausal
breast-cancer patients excreted greater amounts of five
steroids (one
steroid from
17-ketosteroids and four from 17-hydroxycorticoids) than the corresponding controls. The discrepancy between premenopausal and postmenopausal
breast cancer was tentatively related to ovarian-adrenal dysfunction in the course of aging.
Oophorectomy induced a long-lasting
tumor regression only in patients with a high value for the ratio of 11-deoxy-17-ketosteroid to 17-hydroxycorticosteroid in urine taken before surgery; the ratio in the responsive patients decreased remarkably after surgery. A constitutional change in
17-ketosteroids, as observed in a postmenopausal
breast-cancer patient and a premenopausal healthy woman of urban origin, favored the geographic importance in the genesis of breast
malignancy. The
steroid abnormalities in
uterine cancer were distinguishable from those of
breast cancer in both premenopausal and postmenopausal women.