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In this paper we present a study of the diurnal variation of testosterone (T) and estradiol (E2) in women, carried out as part of the design of a prospective study on the hormonal and nutritional etiology of breast cancer. Blood samples were obtained 5 times on the same day, in the morning and early afternoon, from 23 women aged between 25 and 63 yr. Twelve were sampled within the first days following daylight-saving time (SUMTI) introduction. In postmenopause, T mean values decreased from 08:00 h to 15:00 h and the effect of blood drawing time was statistically significant (p less than 0.01), with no significant effects of SUMTI. For E2 mean values, no significant effect was found for either blood drawing time or SUMTI. In premenopause, T mean values decreased from morning to afternoon (p less than 0.01), while no effect of SUMTI was found. A significant decrease was observed for E2 during the day (p less than 0.01), with no significant influence of SUMTI. These results indicate that diurnal variation of T and E2 are such, that one must not neglect the possible effects of timing procedures on hormonal measurements, when hormonal hypotheses are tested in comparative studies on cancer etiology.

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Urinary levels of testosterone, 5 alpha-androstanediol, 17-hydroxycorticosteroids, pregnanediol, and circulating levels of testosterone, 17 beta-estradiol, dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate, prolactin, luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone and sex hormone-binding globulin, were measured in 10 male patients with breast cancer and in a suitable group of healthy controls. No difference, either in blood or in urine, was observed between the two groups in the hormonal levels. The lack of abnormalities in peripherally detectable hormones suggests that the well recognized hormone dependency of male breast cancer may be due to some endocrine imbalance in the central (diencephalic) regulation of the sex steroids pathway. Alternatively, abnormal response of breast tissue to normal hormonal stimuli might be hypothesized in these patients.

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Serum levels of chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), testosterone, luteinizing hormone (LH) and prolactin were evaluated with the radioimmunoassay in 59 patients with lung cancer, 10 patients with benign lung disease, and 37 normal controls. HCG was present in 6.8% of the lung cancer patients but in none of the subjects of the other two groups. Prolactin and LH levels were significantly higher than normal in lung cancer patients (respectively p less than 0.001 and p less than 0.01) as well as in patients with benign lung disease (p less than 0.01 for both the hormones). Testosterone levels were significantly lower than normal in patients with lung cancer (p less than 0.05) but not in those with benign lung disease. When the patients were analyzed according to histologic type and clinical stage of disease, significantly lower than normal values of testosterone were found in patients with small cell carcinoma or squamous cell carcinoma. In the squamous cell carcinoma group, the patients with lymph node metastases had significantly lower testosterone levels than those without lymph node metastases. From these results, we may hypothesize that the raised levels of prolactin and LH are related to a pulmonary pathology, not necessarily neoplastic, whereas the low levels of testosterone are related to the presence of the tumor.