Posthypophysectomy taste abnormalities: their relationship to remote effects of cancer.

Abnormalities in taste sensation have been studied in 15 patients consisting of five normal controls, five patients with diffuse neoplasm and five patients post hypophysectomy. Threshold recognition for salt and HC1 in the three groups studied was the same. Sucrose and urea recognition was higher in patients with neoplasm as compared to normal controls. Patients post hypophysectomy had a lower threshold recognition for sucrose than both normal individuals and patients with neoplasm. The threshold recognition has markedly shifted for both sucrose (decreased) and urea (increased) post hypophysectomy. These observations are in support of previous findings and suggest that the pituitary plays at least a necessary permissible factor in the development of abnormalities in taste as observed in patients with disseminated cancer.