摘要：

The use of sex hormones for the treatment of breast cancer probably contributed more to the management of the advanced disease than the advent of any other therapy. Their value in patients too ill for more severe treatment, their relative lack of debilitating side effects, and the long periods of remission that may be obtained, combine to give hormones a measure of advantage over any other therapy. But it is this very simplicity of use which has resulted in a relative lack of endeavour by clinical research workers to investigate their mode of action. There is little encouragement to investigate the features which might predict those patients who may benefit from hormone therapy when it is so easy to try the drugs clinically on all cases. Androgens or oestrogens can be administered without the patient being admitted to hospital, and the response of the tumour soon provides the answer as to whether or not the treatment will work.

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