OBJECTIVETo observe the influence of chemotherapy with FOLFOX protocol (CT-F) on sex hormones of male patients, and the protective and detoxifying effect of herbal medicines for reinforcing Shen and supplementing qi (HM) on it.

METHODSThe randomized block control and self-control design was adopted to retrospectively investigate the changes of sex hormones in 61 patients with cancer of colon, rectum or stomach. They were assigned to four groups, A: treated simply with HM; B: treated with CT-F; C: treated with CT-F combined with HM; D: the blank control group. One course of CT-F composed of 1 month treatment, and 6 courses totally were applied on each patients. The levels of luteinizing hormone (LH), estradiol (E2), prolactin (PRL), progesterone (P), testosterone (T) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) were determined before treatment (T0), at the end of the 6th month treatment (T1) and the 12th month (T2) after starting treatment.

RESULTSLevels of LH, PRL and T were significantly lowered in the group B at T1, being 4.6 +/- 0.4 IU/L, 8.6 +/- 0.7 microg/L and 13.1 +/- 1.4 IU/L, respectively, which were significantly different to those in the other 3 groups at the corresponding time; they were somewhat raised after chemotherapy but still lower at T2 than those at T0, being 5.0 +/- 0.4 IU/L, 9.9 +/- 1.1 microg/L and 14.1 +/- 1.4 IU/L respectively, also lower than the corresponding levels in the other 3 Groups (P<0.05 or P<0.01). In group C, LH significantly lowered at T1 (P<0.05) to 5.1 +/- 0.4 IU/L, but it was restored to the levels of T0 and that in Group D, reaching 6.1 +/- 0.5 IU/L; while PRL and T were changed insignificantly in the chemotherapeutic course, and restored at T2 to the level of T0, comparable to that in group D. Contrarily, levels of E2 and FSH increased significantly (P <0.01) in group B after chemotherapy (at T1) to 135 +/- 14 pmol/L and 9.1 +/- 1.1 IU/L respectively, and till T2, being 140 +/- 15 pmol/L and 9.1 +/- 1.o IU/L, they were lower than those at T0 and higher than those in group D, A and C ( all P <0.01), but the two indexes were not significantly increased in group C, being 116 +/- 12 pmol/L and 7.1 +/- 0.9 IU/L at T1. However, all the parameters showed no significant change in group A and D, and the level of P showed insignificant change in all the groups in the whole observation period.

CONCLUSIONCT-F could induce multiple sex hormonal abnormalities in male patients with post-operational gastrointestinal cancer, and HM shows protective and detoxifying effects on them in different degrees.