Debates ยท IX. The Gland That Stands Before
Does testosterone feed prostate cancer? disputed
Positions
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Androgen dependence (Huggins, 1941)
Castration or oestrogen lowered serum phosphatases and eased bone pain in men with metastatic prostate cancer; injected androgen raised the phosphatase. Huggins concluded that cancer is not necessarily autonomous.
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Caution from the start
Brendler, Chase and Scott (1949) found that endocrine therapy helped most patients but was not the final answer, and noted that androgen had been given in smaller amounts and for shorter periods to only three patients.
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Morgentaler's reading
The fear that testosterone feeds hidden cancer, which kept doctors from prescribing it for about sixty years, rested in effect on one previously untreated man given testosterone for 18 days.
Evidence
The 1941 findings concern established metastatic disease, not the causation of cancer. The androgen-injection arm was very small: three men, results for two, one already castrated. Huggins's main finding, androgen dependence of advanced prostate cancer, is not in dispute; the extension to all men given testosterone is.
Current standing
The argument goes on, as the film says. Testosterone treatment for men with low testosterone is now widely prescribed, and the cancer question is still debated. Morgentaler's account is presented as his argument, not as settled.