The most versatile of ectopic hormone-producing neoplasms, bronchogenic carcinomas are known to be capable of secreting adrenocorticotropin, glucagon, serotonin, growth hormone, and substances with parathyroidlike and insulin-like action. To this list has recently been added gonadotropin, a hormone previously thought to be formed only by trophoblastic tumors and, very rarely, by hepatoblastomas.
The clinical observation which indirectly led to this recent addition was made over 50 years ago when Locke1 suggested an association between gynecomastia and carcinoma of the lung-syndrome subsequently confirmed in more than 60 reported cases. In 1966, Fusco and Rosen2 measured gonadotropin levels in blood, urine, and neoplastic tissue in four men with bronchogenic carcinoma and gynecomastia. Using a mouse uterine weight technique, they found these levels to be within the high range usually seen in patients with trophoblastic neoplasms. Contrastingly, the levels were low in the pituitary gland. Conceding that their findings did not