Hormone Injections Found to Shrink Kaposi’s Tumors
From Times staff and wire reports
Injections of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a hormone normally produced early in pregnancy, can shrink skin tumors of Kaposi’s sarcoma, the most common form of cancer among AIDS patients. In preliminary tests on 36 people, USC physicians injected hCG into the tumors, which shrank in response. The higher the dose of hCG, the greater the impact on the tumor, the study found.
In 10 of 12 cases that received the highest dose, the tumors seemed to disappear altogether, according to a report in the Oct. 24 New England Journal of Medicine. There is currently no fully effective treatment for Kaposi’s.
