Effects of high-dose medroxyprogesterone given for endometrial carcinoma on serum proteins.

29 women with endometrial cancer were treated with 50-mg medroxyprogesterone twice daily for 1 year and studied to determine what effect this dose of progesterone had on serum proteins. Total serum proteins were significantly (p less than .01) elevated at 3 months until 6 months after treatment. There was a transient decline in albumin at 1 month (p less than .01) which reelevated after 3 months. Alpha-1-globulin and alpha-2-globulin increased at the beginning of therapy (p less than .001 at 1 month) and returned to pretreatment levels at the end of therapy. Gamma globulin levels were significantly less after 1 year of therapy. Alpha-1-acid-glycoprotein was significantly elevated at 1 month and returned to normal after therapy ended. These protein levels are compared with those in pregnancy and during oral contraceptive therapy. It is concluded that these changes are smaller and even the reverse of those seen in pregnancy and oral contraceptive therapy; the changes are attributed to the effect of sex hormones on hepatic metabolic activities.