Elizabeth Stern

Contraceptives and dysplasia: higher rate for pill choosers.

Among women choosing the pill in preference to other contraceptive methods there is a higher rate of the cancer precursor, dysplasia of the cervix, before any possible effect of the pill.

Hormone Excretion Patterns in Breast and Prostate Cancer Are Abnormal

In patients with breast and prostate cancer hormone excretion patterns differ in a similar way from patterns in persons without cancer.

Cancer of the uterine cervix. II. A biometric approach to etiology

The relative importance of a number of environmental, social and physiological factors in cancer of the cervix is evaluated in a study of individuals voluntarily attending a cancer detection center. The population is considered as 4 groups—randomly selected well controls, those with the cancer precursor, dysplasia of the cervix, those with pre‐invasive cancer of the cervix and those with invasive stages of the disease. The distribution of the variables among these groups indicated that 15 of the 20 variables were, on a univariate basis, significantly related to cancer of the cervix. The 20 variables were then considered simultaneously. Using the method of stepwise regression analysis of the data, a subset of factors—endocrine marker, age at marriage, marital events and religion—is most effective in predicting cancer status. These factors are of relatively little value in separating one stage of the disease from another. These findings suggest an association between a behavioral pattern—expressed in married women as early age at marriage and multiple marital events—and a hormonal factor in patients with cancer of the cervix.

Circumcision information in a cancer detection center population

Abstract For men attending the Cancer Detection Center, there is relatively little disagreement between the results of physical examination for the presence or absence of the foreskin and those obtained by questioning. When both the man and his wife were registered at the Cancer Detection Center, the accuracy of reporting by the wife is also high. Circumcision information is apparently not significantly related to religious affiliation, birthplace, age distribution or occupation. The accuracy may, however, be related to the fact that the subjects voluntarily attended a Cancer Detection Center, thus indicating a greater concern with their health than subjects in other studies who were hospital patients.

Studies of long term administration of aflatoxin to rats as a natural food contaminant.

The effect of feeding aflatoxin, as a natural food contaminant, to rats over long periods of time was studied using multigeneration and longevity tests. The test animals in the multigeneration study consisted of three groups of rats fed diets containing 0, 1 and 10 ppb of aflatoxin (predominantly B1) continued over four generations, with animals of the first and fourth generation fed the diets for 104 weeks. These diets were in proper nutritional balance and included 35% ground roasted peanut products; the ration with 0 ppb aflatoxin excluded the peanuts usually discarded; the one with 1 ppb had the roasted discards returned, while the ration with 10 ppb included the discards in amount 10 times that which had been initially removed. Another longevity study was also performed in which rats were fed diets containing aflatoxin at a level of 80 ppb. In this case, the test peanuts, also fed as a simulated peanut butter at 35% concentration, consisted entirely of roasted peanut discards. Control diets provided no peanut components. Animals fed the low levels of aflatoxin grew as well and actually had a higher percentage survival at 104 weeks than did the animals on the control, aflatoxinfree diets. Organ weights, liver total lipid and cholesterol levels were comparable in all groups. Pathological abnormalities, e.g., hemorrhagic and opaque spots and mottling in some of the livers, were attributed to the aging process since the abnormalities appeared in the control as well as the experimental groups. In the animals fed the aflatoxin at 80 ppb, which has been reported by several investigators to produce well-defined hepatomas in rats, there was liver involvement and some biochemical changes occurred that were not noted in the controls. However, no hepatomas were observed in these animals even after 21 months on this diet. The liver lesions, indicative of a toxic effect, have not been associated with the development of hepatomas. It is possible that some components of the diet used in these experiments may have protected the animal against hepatoma formation. Our studies indicate that there may be a tolerance for aflatoxin as judged by results in one species of rats when whole ground roasted peanuts provide the natural contaminant.

Contraceptive choice and dysplasia: Changes following the 1970 senate hearings

An initial shift away from the pill was followed by a rebound toward the prehearing pattern of contraceptive choice; pill preference, however, is no longer a meaningful indicator of the cancer precursor, dysplasia of the cervix.

CONTRACEPTIVES AND DYSPLASIA: HIGHER RATE FOR PILL CHOOSERS

Among women choosing the pill in preference to other contraceptive methods there is a higher rate of the cancer precursor, dysplasia of the cervix, before any possible effect of the pill.

Psychological-hormonal relationships in men with cancer.

An exploration was made of relationships between 3 urinary hormone metabolites (androsterone, estradiol, adrenocorticoids) and 7 aspects of personality (Kindliness, Security, Submissiveness, Hostility, Anxiety, Assertiveness, and a combination score representing stressful-nonstressful feelings) as measured by a self-rating, 60-word adjective checklist. There were 130 male Ss, 56 with lung or prostate cancer, 38 with emphysema or benign prostate hyperplasia, and 36 well individuals. Of 21 rank coefficients computed for the total group, 5 reached the .05 level of significance; among cancer patients, 2 of 21 coefficients were significant; and among noncancer Ss, 9 of the 21 were significant. There was no consistent pattern in the results for the patients with cancer. Among the noncancer Ss, stressful feelings tended to be positively associated, and nonstressful feelings negatively associated, with the hormone metabolite levels.