Prolactin levels and hormonal profile in postmenopausal patients with advanced breast cancer during endocrine treatments.

Seventy postmenopausal patients with advanced breast cancer, the majority not having been pretreated, underwent a hormonal profile study (LH, FSH, PRL, E2, testosterone, TSH, T3, T4, FT3, FT4 serum levels) by RIA standard methods. The result was that these patients had the same mean hormonal profile of normal controls. The hormonal profile was studied in 66 patients before and after one month of treatment with medroxyprogesterone acetate at high doses (MAP h.d.) (45 patients), tamoxifen (TAM) (10 pts.) and MAP h.d. + TAM + bromocriptine (MTB) (11 pts.). No significant difference in the pre-treatment hormonal profile was observed in either patients who responded to the subsequent treatment or in those who did not. MAP h.d. induced a marked inhibition of gonadotropins, E2, testosterone, T3, T4 while PRL, TSH and FT3 remained unchanged and FT4 increased. TAM induced a decrease of gonadotropins and T4 while all the other hormones remained unchanged. MTB induced the same effects of MAP h.d. as well as a decrease of PRL serum levels. All hormonal variations except PRL occurred independently of the clinical response. A particular behaviour of PRL was evident after one month of treatment with MAP h.d. and TAM: patients who did not respond had a statistically significant increase of PRL serum levels while in responders the PRL serum levels decreased or remained unchanged. Specifically 24 out of 28 (86%) patients with an increase greater than 20% of the PRL levels were non-responders.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)