Serum testosterone level of patients with gastric carcinoma before and after gastrectomy.

The serum testosterone level (STL) was determined in 84 male and 32 female patients with gastric carcinoma and in 58 male and 20 female patients with benign diseases as a control group. The STL of the male patients with carcinoma was lower (446 +/- 149 ng/dl) than that of the male control group (532 +/- 132 ng/dl) (P less than 0.001). Even 17 male patients of the early carcinoma showed lower STL (440 +/- 117 ng/dl) than the normal group (P less than 0.001). In the female patients, it was also lower (31.6 +/- 16.0 ng/dl) than in the control group (46.3 +/- 15.3 ng/dl) (P less than 0.005). The postoperative STL of the cases surviving the gastrectomy was higher than the preoperative data in 32 male patients (P less than 0.005) as well as in 12 female patients (0.025 greater than P greater than 0.01), whereas it obviously decreased in the patients who died of recurrence. Therefore, it appears that gastric carcinoma decreases the STL by some mechanism.