[Additive treatment of metastasizing breast cancer with special reference to postmenopausal age (results of a...

Two therapy groups were formed at random out of 82 patients with progressive carcinoma of the breast. One was treated with estrogens, namely 17-ethinyl 1,3,5-estratriene 3,17 diol (SH 8.1083). The second group was treated with depot preparations consisting of a combination of estrogens and gestagens; these patients received 90 mg estradiol valerianate and 300 mg 17-hydroxy-19-norprogesterone caproate (SH 8.0834) weekly. The estrogen therapy resulted in a remission rate of 48% (complete remission 21.1%, partial remission 26.9%). The remission rate of the combination treatment was 46.6% (complete remission 23.3%, partial remission 23.3%). There was no considerable difference between the remission rates produced by the two therapeutik methods. It is remarkable that much more osseous remissions were found under the combination therapy of estrogens and gestagens. There were no substantial differences between the remission rates of the soft-tissue metastases and the pleuropulmonary metastases. In the estrogen group the remissions took 7.7 months, whereas an average remission period of 8.3 months was observed in the estrogen-gestagen group.