PROBABILITY OF A WOMAN WITH ADVANCED BREAST CANCER RESPONDING TO ADRENALECTOMY OR HYPOPHYSECTOMY

Data on urinary steroids in women with breast cancer have been used to produce probability curves allowing the chance of success with adrenalectomy or hypophysectomy to be computed for individual patients. Graphs have been drawn for probability of success against size of discriminant (11-deoxy-17-ketosteroids + 17-hydroxycorticosteroids) in 164 cases of breast cancer. In older patients this approach could be made more useful by substituting time to ablation for 17-hydroxycorticosteroids. This probability method may provide the clinician with a useful tool in assessing an individual patient's likely response to endocrine surgery.