[Hormone receptors and endocrine therapy of renal carcinoma]

One hundred sixty-five consecutive patients with resectable renal cancer entered a cooperative study to evaluate hormone treatment and steroid receptors. Twenty-nine patients with concomitant distant metastases (category M1) received intramuscular medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) 500 mg/day for at least two months after the operation. No measurable remission was observed, but 8 of 24 evaluable patients (33%) had disease stabilization for a median duration of 6 months. One hundred thirty-six cases with category M0 cancer were randomly allocated to a control group or to a treatment group with MPA 500 mg/3 times a week for one year. After a median follow-up period of over 3 years, 30 of 121 evaluable patients (24.8%) had a relapse, usually in distant sites. Relapses and survival were independent from postoperative treatment and sex. Only the extent of the disease and the presence of steroid receptors in the tumor were related with prognosis, but no relation could be found between receptors and response to hormone treatment. The presence of low concentrations of hormone receptors in a proportion of renal cancers remains unclear. However, MPA is confirmed to be only marginally active in metastatic renal cancer and the drug cannot be recommended as adjuvant to radically resected patients because of significant toxicity and lack of therapeutic activity.