Androgen receptor assays in advanced prostatic cancer.

Most technical obstacles in performing biochemical androgen receptor assays on malignant prostatic tissue have been surmounted. The available data, while suggesting that nuclear androgen receptor content in malignant tissues may be a useful criterion in this regard, remain meager and contradictory. The authors suggest that the clinical nature of prostatic cancer, including the tendency for metastases to occur in osseous and deep lymphatic regions and the heterogeneous intermingling of benign and malignant elements in the primary tumor, may preclude the success of biochemical assays for androgen receptors to predict hormonal dependency of prostatic tumors.