The treatment of postmenopausal women with advanced breast cancer with buserelin

Repeated administration of long-acting analogues of gonadotrophin-releasing hormone down-regulates the pituitary gonadotrophins and gonadal hormones. The activity of these compounds in premenopausal women with breast cancer has been previously noted. In an attempt to cause a highly selective medical hypophysectomy 18 consecutive postmenopausal women with symptomatic advanced breast cancer were treated with intranasal buserelin in divided dosages of either 600 or 1000 micrograms daily. The pituitary gonadotrophins were suppressed in all patients, without objective evidence of response. This is in contrast with an earlier finding that the long-acting analogues of gonadotrophin-releasing hormone were effective in postmenopausal patients with breast cancer.