New perspectives on hormone therapy for prostate cancer

Dr Declan McKenna, Lecturer in the School of Biomedical Sciences at Ulster University, Coleraine, outlines past, present and future perspectives on hormone therapy for prostate cancer When Dr Charles Huggins took up a new post at the University of Chicago in 1927, he had little interest in cancer biology. A physiologist by training, he was more interested in glandular secretions and was researching how prostatic fluid could control the growth of the prostate. His early animal experiments revealed that if he castrated a dog, its prostate gland would shrink and the prostatic fluid would unsurprisingly dry up. However, if the…