The effects of preparations of human chorionic gonadotropin on AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), published as a randomized controlled trial.

Kaposi's sarcoma is the most common cancer in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 36 patients were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults and middle-aged adults, men only.

After in vitro evaluation of four commercially available hCG preparations, the most active product was evaluated in 36 patients with AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma.

In each patient three nodular lesions were injected, two with the drug and one with diluent alone.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized and double-blind.

Because people in this hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Neither the patients nor the staff measuring them knew who was on hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, Apoptosis, Chorionic Gonadotropin, Gonadotropins, Pituitary, Injections, Intralesional, Mice and Mice, Transgenic.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and double-blind study of hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) in 36 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 10 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 1996 (The New England journal of medicine), a journal based in United States.

More context: the hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) compound page, all human trials.