Pelvic radiotherapy, sex hormones, and breast cancer.

Radiotherapy for malignant and benign gynecologic disease in middle age has been found to be associated inversely with the risk of breast cancer in several published studies. The ovaries received substantial doses of radiation from such treatments, in the tens of Gray (Gy) from radiotherapy for cervical cancer and one to 10 Gy from radiotherapy for benign gynecologic disease (BGD). The relative risk of breast cancer incidence or mortality decreased with increasing radiation dose to the ovaries between zero to six Gy but varied little with further increases in dose. Evidence of a protective effect even among women irradiated past the age of 50 suggests a mechanism other than that associated with induction of an early menopause. An inverse association with radiotherapy among women over age 50 was seen only for women with ovarian doses exceeding about four to five Gy, namely, those treated for cervical cancer or with external beam X-rays for BGD. Ovarian doses of two to three Gy from intrauterine radium (226Ra) treatments for BGD were not associated with an appreciably reduced risk of breast cancer, even though the treatments had the intended effect of inducing menopause in women in their mid-40s. The relevant target cells in the ovaries for radiologic menopause likely are those involved in estrogen production. Although the postmenopausal ovary has largely stopped producing estrogens, it continues to secrete androgens. Serum hormone measurements on a small sample of cervical cancer patients indicate that high-dose pelvic radiotherapy eliminates or greatly reduces this residual androgen-producing activity in ovaries of postmenopausal women.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

[Hormonal disorders in women with prosopalgia in osteochondrosis of the cervical spine and the possible means for their correction]. / Gormonal'nye narusheniia u zhenshchin s prozopalgiiami pri osteokhondroze sheinogo otdela pozvonochnika i vozmozhnye puti ikh korrektsii.

Radioimmunoassay was employed to determine basal levels of LH, FSH, prolactin, total testosterone and 17 beta-estradiol in plasma from 52 pre- or postmenopausal women with prosopalgia consequent to cervical osteochondrosis. The measurements were made before and after laser treatment. Different from the control, basal levels of the hormones and the trends in their changes due to laser therapy depended on the patients' age and the disease stage.

[The effect of iodine-131 on the binding characteristics of sex and thyroid hormones by blood plasma proteins in children with a functional thyroid disorder as a result of the accident at the Chernobyl Atomic Electric Power Station]. / Vliianie ioda-131 na kharakteristiki sviazyvaniia polovykh i tireoidnykh gormonov belkami plazmy krovi u detei s funktsional'nym narusheniem shchitovidnoi zhelezy v rezul'tate avarii na ChAES.

In studying characteristics of specific interaction of estradiol-, testosterone- and thyroid-binding blood globulins with the corresponding ligands in children from Gomel Province with endemic swelling of the thyroid gland (degrees I and II) affected by iodine-131 revealed were a reduced cooperativity in estradiol and T-3 binding and a halved affinity to androgens and thyroids as compared to healthy controls. In addition, there was a drastic decline in the binding capacity of estradiol- and testosterone-binding globulins in the blood plasma. The endemic thyroid gland swelling is supposed to be due to sexual malfunction in teenagers.