SERIC TESTOSTERONE - A POSSIBLE MARKER FO R COLORECTAL-CANCER

A reduction of circulating testosterone has been reported in lung, sto mach and pancreatic carcinoma. In order to evaluate the concentration of this hormone in patients with colorectal cancer, we studied 58 men with histologically confirmed disease. Seric testosterone, estradiol a nd carcinoembryogenic antigen were simultaneously measured in 24 patie nts under pre-surgical evaluation (group I) and in 34 patients after s urgical resection (group II). The results were compared with a control group carrying benign gastrointestinal pathologies. According to the Kruskal-Wallis test, the testosterone level in cancer groups was signi ficantly lower than in the control group (p < 0.0001). We have also ob served a statistical significance between subgroups I and II compared to the control group (p < 0.001), while no conspicuous differences wer e perceived in estradiol concentrations between benign and cancer grou ps. Decreased serum levels of testosterone were found in 69% of patien ts with colon or rectal carcinoma and 56.9% of them had raised levels of carcinoembryonic antigen. The combined determination of both biomar kers increase to 86.2% the sensitivity of tumor screening compared wit h a single detection. Our results suggest that the combination of test osterone and carcinoembryonic antigen enhances the efficiency of tumor screening. We conclude that the evaluation of circulating testosteron e could be a new and more sensitive assay for diagnosis and follow-up of colorectal carcinoma in males, specially in patients with normal le vels of carcinoembryonic antigen.