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Psychosomatic Medicine 22:435-442 (1960)
© 1960 American Psychosomatic Society

The Role of Hormones in Human Behavior

II. Changes in Sexual Behavior in Relation to Vaginal Smears of Breast-Cancer Patients after Oophorectomy and Adrenalectomy

SHELDON E. WAXENBERG Ph.D.1, JOHN A. FINKBEINER M.D.1, MARVIN G. DRELLICH M.D1, and ARTHUR M. SUTHERLAND M.D1

1 Division of Clinical Investigation, Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, and the Department of Medicine, Memorial Center for Cancer and Allied Diseases New York

Adrenalectomy either subsequent to or combined with oophorectomy in 24 women with metastatic carcinoma of the breast was followed in significant numbers of patients by decreases in cytological activity in the vaginal mucosa and by decreases in sexual desire, sexual activity, and sexual responsiveness. The declines in sexual manifestations were not the consequence of unfavorable outcome of adrenalectomy.

No significant correiations were found between vaginal cytology and sexual behavior in the individual patients before adrenalectomy or afterwards, and no significant correlations were found between changes in the vaginal smears and changes in sexual behavior of individual patients after adrenalectomy. For an individual patient there would appear to be little predictability concerning changes in sexual behavior simply from information on change in the vaginal smear, or vice versa.

The close correlations between sexual dynamics and vaginal smears that have been reported by others have not been confirmed in this study. The determinants of the vaginal smear are more complex than previously indicated, and sexual behavior is not so directly tied to levels of estrogen as has been believed.






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Copyright © 1960 by the American Psychosomatic Society