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ACTH and Related Peptides in Lung Cancer

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Peptide Hormones in Lung Cancer

Part of the book series: Recent Results in Cancer Research ((RECENTCANCER,volume 99))

Abstract

The study of ACTH and related peptides in lung cancer has had an important influence in formulating current concepts of ACTH biosynthesis and the wider aspects of ectopic hormone production. The fact that tumours arising in tissues traditionally regarded as “nonendocrine”, such as lung, can synthesise and secrete hormones has only been clearly recognised by clinicians in the last 25 years. For some years after the characterisation of the ectopic ACTH syndrome the phenomenon was thought to be very rare. Thus, a critical analysis of nonendocrine tumours associated with Cushing’s syndrome in 1968 showed there to be only about 133 acceptable cases of the syndrome in the literature (Azzopardi and Williams 1968). The majority were due to small cell and carcinoid tumours of the lung, with fewer cases due to endocrine tumours of foregut origin, phaeochromocytoma and related tumours and certain ovarian tumours. Increased clinical awareness and the application of newer methods of hormone assay have fundamentally changed the perspective on the prevalence of ACTH production by extrapituitary tissues, both tumorous and nontumorous. The overt ectopic ACTH syndrome with gross hypercortisolaemia and hypokalaemic alkalosis is still unusual in patients with lung cancer, but biochemical evidence suggests that ACTH production by lung tumours is common.

Some of the work described in this paper was supported by the Scottish Hospitals Endowment Research Trust and the Cancer Research Campaign

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Pathology, Hope Hospital, University of Manchester, Salford, M6 8HD, Great Britain

    J. G. Ratcliffe

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  1. J. G. Ratcliffe
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zentrum für Innere Medizin Medizinische Klinik und Poliklinik Schwerpunkt Hämatologie, Onkologie, Immunologie, Klinikum der Philipps-Universität Marburg, Baldingerstrasse, 3550, Marburg, Deutschland

    Klaus Havemann

  2. Department of Pathology, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH, 03756, USA

    George Sorenson MD

  3. Klinik Bergisch-Land, Im Saalscheid 5, 5600, Wuppertal-Ronsdorf 21, Deutschland

    Claus Gropp

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© 1985 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Ratcliffe, J.G. (1985). ACTH and Related Peptides in Lung Cancer. In: Havemann, K., Sorenson, G., Gropp, C. (eds) Peptide Hormones in Lung Cancer. Recent Results in Cancer Research, vol 99. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-82533-0_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-82533-0_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-15504-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-82533-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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