[Adrenal-posterior pituitary imbalance in digestive cancer patients]

In a group of 10 patients with a cancer of the digestive tract, some investigations, performed before the surgical intervention, showed the evidence of an adrenal-postpituitary imbalance in favour of the second term. During a water loading, the plasmatic cortisol rates stayed more higher by cancerous subjects than by controls (but not the plasmatic aldosterone rates); nevertheless, the vasopressin secretion rates could be considered as more higher yet in cancerous subjects because the free water clearances were significantly lowered by these patients. Such results have to be put in relation with the opposite effects of vasopressin and corticoids on the cell mitosis, as well as with some therapeutical attempts that end to check this type of endocrine imbalance.