Question

Why can cancers of endocrine glands lead to hormonal imbalances?

Answer 1

Tumors or cancer can arise in the endocrine system eg, pitutory tumor, thyroid cancer, neuroendocrine tumor of the pancreas, because of the position of these tumors they may cause destruction of the normal gland and subsquent hormonal deficiency, sometimes cancer can cause overproduction or secretion of hormone eg some pitutory tumor may lead to precocious puberty, the adrenal medulla is the common site for the development of neuroblastoma.Some cancer cells can produce hormones that circulate in the body and cause symptom, this is called paraneoplasticsyndrome, the symptom depends on the particular hormone produced eg, some type of lung cancer cells produce hormones that may cause symptoms like Pins and needles, numbness in the finger, muscle weakness etc.

Development of tumor in the endocrine system may increase or decrease the hormone levels in the body, most endocrine tumors are non cancerous, they usually do not usually spread to other parts of the body, but the tumor can interfere with glands hormone production. Hormone production and serum hormone concentration are maintained by feed back mechanism, target glands such as thyroid gland, adrenal gland are under distant feedback regulation by the hypothalamus-pitutory-target gland axis, however cancer cells have known to affect these feed back loop and cause hormonal imbalance.