Quantitative measurement of the ability of human chromophobe adenomas to synthesize and release human growth hormone.

Two endocrine functions, HGH synthesis and release, were separately studied on human chromophobe adenomas, isolating the hormone with polyacrylamide gel disc electrophoresis after in vitro labelling of the hormone with 14C-leucine. The results of the experiments utilizing fresh adenoma tissues obtained from 8 cases at operation revealed that all of the adenomas synthesized and released HGH. Employing appropriate parameters, HGH synthesis and release functions of the tumor were estimated. HGH synthesis function was likely to be extremely low, but the release function rather high. HGH content in the adenoma tissues ranged from 0.04 to 2.56 ng/mg wet tissue, which was exceedingly smaller than the value of 8000 ng/mg wet tissue observed with the human anterior pituitary obtained at autopsy. Key words; Chromophobe adenoma. Human growth hormone. HGH synthesis. HGH release