IN THIS preliminary report no attempt will be made to explain the relationship between sex hormones and cancer in general, the purpose being merely to describe the results obtained with testosterone propionate in three cases of mammary cancer. Among the few reports published on this use of the male sex hormone, the earliest is that of Ulrich (1) who reported the effects in two cases. The first patient, aged 45 years, had had a unilateral mastectomy (left breast) for intracanalicular epithelioma. The right breast was painful, granular and rough to palpation and seemed to be in a preneoplastic or epitheliomatous state. Since malignant transformation such as had occurred in the left breast was feared, amputation of the right breast was contemplated, but before carrying out this procedure Ulrich gave two series of 10 injections of 10 mg. of testosterone acetate. After the first few injections there was a distinct lessening of pain in the right breast and left arm and by the time the treatment was completed the breast had become supple, almost soft, and was no longer of a nodular consistency.
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E Fels (1944) studied this question.